Staff Thermal Engineer

About the Team: 

The Interplanetary Sciences Program was established to expand access to scientific exploration across our solar system. Its mission is to make planetary research faster, more affordable, and more capable than ever before by rethinking how science missions are designed, built, and operated. The program aims to enable scientists to send instruments to distant worlds without decades of development or prohibitive costs. By creating a sustainable model for interplanetary exploration, we are transforming space science from an occasional event into a continuous process of discovery that accelerates knowledge, broadens participation, and inspires the next generation of explorers.

About the Role:

As a Staff Thermal Engineer within the Interplanetary Sciences Program at Relativity Space, you will own the development and application of the spacecraft thermal model that directly guides the design, qualification, and operation of an interplanetary spacecraft. You will define the thermal architecture from first principles, translate mission environments and operational concepts into hardware requirements, and serve as the thermal technical authority across the vehicle lifecycle. This role spans early architecture and trade studies through test correlation, flight qualification, and mission operations, and requires strong technical judgment, analytical skills, autonomy, and systems-level thinking. 

Essential Duties and Responsibilities: 

• Develop, maintain, and mature integrated spacecraft thermal models at the vehicle, subsystem, and component levels
• Define thermal architectures and requirements and iterate hardware designs in collaboration with cross-disciplinary engineering teams
• Generate flight temperature predictions, margins, and off-nominal analyses, and communicate actionable guidance to the broader engineering team
• Ensure spacecraft payloads remains within operating and survival limits across all mission phases using robust passive and active thermal control strategies
• Correlate thermal models to component, subsystem, and vehicle-level test and/or flight data

About You:

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or a closely related field
  
• 6+ years of experience developing and applying thermal models for spacecraft or flight hardware
• Proficiency with spacecraft thermal analysis tools such as Thermal Desktop, ANSYS, or other software
• Experience anchoring thermal models to test and/or flight data and using results to drive design decisions
• Strong understanding of lumped-parameter (0D/1D) thermal networks and appropriate use of higher-fidelity methods
• Effective technical communicator with demonstrated success working cross-functionally in fast-paced environments

Nice to haves but not required:  

• Familiarity with spaceflight thermal margin, qualification, and verification standards (e.g. SMC-S-016)
• Experience planning or executing spacecraft environmental testing, including TVAC
• Experience across a full spacecraft lifecycle, from concept development through on-orbit operations
• Prior experience supporting flight thermal predictions or mission operations