Guidance, Navigation, and Control Analyst - Military veterans preferred

Description

SAIC is seeking a Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC) Analyst on the OMES II contract in support of the OSAM-1 program in NASA’s Exploration and In-Space Services (NExIS) projects division at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. This position is located in Greenbelt, MD.

The OSAM-1 mission is a Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) NExIS managed mission. OSAM-1 is a robotic servicing mission designed to refuel a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite. It contains 3 elements: the Flight Element comprised of the OSAM-1 Servicing Vehicle (RSV) and development testbeds, the Ground Element comprised of the systems required to conduct RSV operations and the supporting networks and facilities, and the Launch Element comprised of the Launch Vehicle and supporting facilities and services. NExIS is responsible for the design, engineering, development, test and operations of the OSAM-1 Mission through an integrated team at GSFC. The Servicing Payload design, development and RSV integration will be conducted at GSFC.

JOB DESCRIPTION:

The GNC Analyst will provide Spacecraft dynamics modeling and estimation/control design support for the OSAM-1 Rendezvous and Proximity Operations (RPO) Team. The OSAM-1 RPO subsystem is responsible for developing the algorithms and software for the rendezvous and capturing another vehicle. 

Modeling includes:

• Flexible body dynamics and slosh
• Actuators (thruster, reaction wheel, stepper motor, robot arm)
• Sensors (gyro, GPSR, star tracker, accelerometer, LIDAR)
• Synthetic imagery and ray tracing

Estimation/Control Design includes:

• Inertial navigation and attitude estimation
• Relative state estimation between two vehicles
• Machine vision pose algorithms
• Inertial navigation and attitude control
• Relative state guidance for rendezvous
• Fault detection, isolation, and resolution

The GNC Analyst will help develop a high fidelity simulation of the OSAM-1 mission that includes all mission phases.

Job duties include:

• Develop and validate physics-based software model of the OSAM-1 hardware in C.
• Develop and verify estimation and control algorithms.
• Construct mission scenarios to conduct sensitivity and performance analyses
• Provide analysis support throughout hardware integration and testing
• Support the flight software integration and qualification testing
• Support RPO team verification.

 

Qualifications

REQUIRED EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE:

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, aerospace engineering, or closely related field with 4+ years of related experience. (2+ years with Master’s degree)
• Experience developing a simulation and analyzing GNC performance
• Experience developing and validating physics-based software models of hardware
• Experience developing and analyzing state estimation and control algorithms
• Proficient using Matlab and C. 

DESIRED EXPERIENCE:

• Experience with GNC on orbit operations of a spacecraft
• Experience with spacecraft integration and testing
• Experience with flight software integration and qualification
• Familiarity with LIDARs and/or optical systems
• Demonstrated exceptional performance in a team environment