Sr. GNC Orbit Controls Engineer

About the role

Xona is the navigational intelligence company bringing real-time, centimeter-level certainty to any device, anywhere on Earth.

With Pulsar - the world’s most advanced PNT satellite infrastructure in Low Earth Orbit - Xona will offer a future-proof, backwards-compatible global positioning system optimized for absolute precision, superior power, and robust protection.

We're looking for a Sr. GNC Orbit Controls Engineer to design and implement the algorithms and onboard software that handle orbit determination, guidance, maneuver execution, and post-maneuver analysis to deliver safe, efficient, and highly automated station-keeping and disposal. We’re building the software that keeps our spacecraft exactly where they need to be.

What You’ll Do

• Develop open-loop and closed-loop controllers for RAAN and LTAN control, altitude management, station-keeping, and end-of-life disposal
• Implement and maintain onboard orbit propagators, select and validate integrators, and ensure numerical consistency with ground truth
• Build and validate orbit determination pipelines using EKF or UKF with GNSS, and manage navigation readiness and covariance gating for maneuvers
• Design burns and long-arc trajectories, and optimize delta V and timelines under comm visibility, power and thermal, and operations constraints
• Plan and execute electric-propulsion long burns, including throttle profile generation, power and duty-cycle scheduling, thermal considerations, ignition and re-ignition logic, progress monitoring, and correction strategies
• Coordinate burn pointing and wheel momentum strategy with ADCS
• Maintain numerically consistent MATLAB and C++ simulators, create Monte Carlo campaigns, run SIL and HIL tests, and perform post-maneuver reconstruction

Required Qualifications

• You are strong in orbital mechanics and simulation and have implemented onboard propagators with perturbation models and integrators on flight targets
• You have built production guidance, control, or navigation software in C and C++, and use MATLAB and Simulink for analysis, modeling, and test-vector generation
• You have designed RAAN and LTAN control strategies in open-loop and closed-loop forms and validated them in high-fidelity sims or flight
• You have executed or supported real maneuvers and can reconcile plan versus truth with post-burn estimation
• You are comfortable at the ADCS and propulsion interface for burn pointing and momentum management

Desired Qualifications

• Master’s or Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering, Control Systems, Applied Physics, or a related field
• Hands-on electric propulsion experience including thrust modeling and calibration, long-burn guidance, duty-cycle planning, and thermal constraints
• Experience with orbit propagation algorithms
• Trajectory design and optimization expertise
• Emphasis on code quality and reliability with unit and integration testing, SIL and HIL, and experience on embedded RTOS or embedded Linux targets
• Familiarity with CCSDS ephemeris and attitude formats

Additional information

For U.S. Roles: To comply with U.S. Government space technology export regulations, applicant must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the United States (i.e. Green Card holder), or other protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3).

For U.K. Roles: To comply with U.K. regulations, this role requires Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) checks, and successful candidates must be eligible to obtain UK Security Clearance (SC).

For Canada Roles: Successful candidates must obtain and hold a security clearance at the reliability status level, and pass security assessment for the Canadian Controlled Goods Program (CGP) and ITAR.