Orbit Determination and Navigation Engineer
Level III–IV
Houston, TX
About Intuitive Machines:
Intuitive Machines is an innovative and cutting-edge space company making cislunar space accessible to both public and private customers. Our mission is to further science and exploration, communications, and economic progress from the Earth to the Moon and beyond. With multiple NASA lunar missions in development and additional private missions on our manifest, we pride ourselves in supporting NASA, our customers, and the nation in paving the way to return humans to the surface of the Moon. Our world-class team includes experts in all aspects of spacecraft subsystems design, development, and test, on-orbit operations, and safety.
KinetX Aerospace, a subsidiary of Intuitive Machines, is a trusted engineering services and product company specializing in space navigation, flight dynamics, mission operations, communications, and systems engineering. As the first private company qualified by NASA for deep-space navigation, KinetX has supported some of the world’s most complex planetary missions, including MESSENGER, New Horizons, OSIRIS-REx, Lucy, and LunaH-Map. With a proven record spanning Earth-orbiting, suborbital, commercial, international, and deep-space missions, KinetX provides end-to-end expertise from early mission design through flight operations. Its core capabilities include navigation and mission systems development, optical navigation, orbit determination, maneuver design, trajectory optimization, and constellation design and maintenance. Combined with Intuitive Machines’ spacecraft, network, and mission-operations capabilities, KinetX helps build, connect, and operate resilient space infrastructure for sustained exploration, advanced deep-space constellations, and communications networks.
About the Position:
We are seeking an Orbit Determination (OD) and Navigation Engineer at Level III (Lead) or Level IV (Technical Expert) to join the OD group within FDI. Level III engineers lead assigned OD efforts and guide others in technical execution and quality. Level IV engineers serve as technical experts for complex OD work across mission phases and oversee multiple analyses, products, and software capabilities. Placement will reflect demonstrated competencies.
Responsibilities:
- Support daily OD solutions and trajectory reconstructions, covariance analyses, tracking data quality assessments, and evaluation of forces affecting spacecraft trajectories.
- Produce trajectory updates that support maneuver design, reference trajectories, and science observations. Responsibilities vary by level as described below.
- Lead complex OD analyses and product development for assigned efforts.
- Define estimation strategies and validation methods, diagnose residual and covariance issues, and establish quality checks that reduce solution risks.
- Serve as lead liaison with mission operations, customers, and engineering teams. Manage priorities, effort, schedules, and budgets across multiple projects and report progress and issues to management.
- Improve OD methods and software workflows, establish test approaches, review code, and guide other engineers.
- Oversee technical documentation and anticipate problems affecting mission objectives.
Additional Level IV responsibilities
- Provide technical leadership for complex OD efforts across mission phases. Determine estimation approaches, tracking data usage, observability strategies, support for optical navigation and maneuvers, and validation plans. Resolve difficult issues involving modeling assumptions, estimation stability, covariance realism, and solution credibility.
- Oversee planning, design, development, and verification of multiple complex OD efforts. Lead projects from conception through completion, define requirements with stakeholders, and manage schedules, resources, and budgets. Ensure accuracy standards are met, review subtle data and modeling issues before product release, and communicate progress and technical decisions to executives.
- Lead development and integration of complex OD software capabilities, including architecture, data flow, interface control, validation, and operational readiness. Resolve reliability and interoperability issues, guide engineers through difficult problems under pressure, and lead research and continuous improvements to OD tools, processes, and product quality.
Requirements:
- Bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, or a related discipline.
- GPA of 3.5 or higher on a 4.0 scale.
- Clear technical writing and verbal communication skills, attention to detail, and the ability to collaborate with engineering and mission operations teams.
- U.S. citizenship.
- Specialized OD knowledge and demonstrated ability to lead complex analyses, develop estimation and validation approaches, and interpret residuals, covariance, and solution behavior to support operational decisions.
- Experience leading technical work and guiding engineers, conducting quality and code reviews, and improving analysis methods and software reliability, repeatability, and traceability.
- Ability to anticipate technical risks, coordinate customers and cross-functional teams, manage multiple project schedules and budgets, and oversee technical documentation and management reporting.
- Proficiency in Python and OD software workflows, with sound practices in version control, testing, and configuration management.
- Ability to independently execute OD analyses, apply relevant aerospace quality standards, and communicate findings to mission teams and customers.
Additional Level IV qualifications
- Recognized technical expertise in OD, with demonstrated ability to guide complex analyses across mission phases, select estimation and observability strategies, and resolve difficult issues in tracking data, modeling, estimation stability, covariance realism, and solution credibility.
- Experience leading the development and integration of complex OD software, including architecture, interfaces, validation, and operational readiness.
- Ability to resolve performance, reliability, interoperability, and long-term support challenges.
- Demonstrated ability to oversee multiple complex OD projects from planning through completion, manage schedules and budgets, and guide teams in high-pressure situations.
- Experience overseeing quality verification, leading research and process improvements, maintaining technical records, and communicating with executives.
Preferred Requirements:
- Master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, or a related discipline.
- Coursework, research, or work experience in two or more of statistical orbit determination, estimation, astrodynamics, statistics, linear control theory, or Kalman filtering.
- Familiarity with deep space mission operations, deep space OD processes, tracking data types, optical navigation image processing, or flight path control.
- Experience with macOS or Linux environments and additional programming languages such as C, C++, Perl, MATLAB, or Fortran.
Additional requirements
- Availability to travel and work extended hours for team meetings and operations support, as needed.
- Willingness to cross-train in other deep space navigation disciplines to support the KinetX multi-mission workforce.
US EEO Statement:
Intuitive Machines is an Equal Opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, color, religion, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, age, or any other characteristic protected by law.
Similar Jobs
What you need to know about the Los Angeles Tech Scene
Key Facts About Los Angeles Tech
- Number of Tech Workers: 375,800; 5.5% of overall workforce (2024 CompTIA survey)
- Major Tech Employers: Snap, Netflix, SpaceX, Disney, Google
- Key Industries: Artificial intelligence, adtech, media, software, game development
- Funding Landscape: $11.6 billion in venture capital funding in 2024 (Pitchbook)
- Notable Investors: Strong Ventures, Fifth Wall, Upfront Ventures, Mucker Capital, Kittyhawk Ventures
- Research Centers and Universities: California Institute of Technology, UCLA, University of Southern California, UC Irvine, Pepperdine, California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy, Center for Quantum Science and Engineering
