Senior Instrumentation & Data Acquisition SME

ARCTOS is seeking a part-time Senior Instrumentation and Data Acquisition Subject Matter Expert (SME) to support the development, qualification, and flight testing of an instrumented structural panel. This position requires senior technician level expertise and extensive hands-on experience with aerospace flight-test instrumentation, sensor installation, signal conditioning, data acquisition systems, and environmental qualification testing. The SME will work closely with structural, aerothermal, instrumentation, modeling, and engineers to translate measurement requirements into a reliable flight ready instrumentation system.

The successful candidate should be comfortable working directly with test hardware and providing practical guidance on sensor installation, wiring, connectors, data acquisition architecture, system checkout, troubleshooting, and qualification testing.

Essential Job Functions:

Support development of the panel instrumentation and data acquisition approach, including sensor selection, placement, installation methods, wiring, signal conditioning, sampling requirements, and channel allocation. Provide hands-on technical expertise for installation and integration of instrumentation on structural panels and associated flight hardware. Support instrumentation including strain, temperature, static and dynamic pressure, acceleration/vibration, and other measurements required to characterize the panel and its flight environment.

Support integration of instrumentation with vehicle data acquisition, power, telemetry, and onboard data-storage systems. Evaluate instrumentation requirements against available power, data acquisition channels, sampling rates, bandwidth, and onboard data-storage capacity and support trades when vehicle resources are constrained. Develop and/or review instrumentation drawings, wiring diagrams, sensor installation procedures, channel lists, calibration requirements, and instrumentation checkout procedures. Support sensor calibration, end-to-end channel verification, troubleshooting, and data-quality assessment.

Assist with planning and execution of environmental qualification and acceptance testing of the fully instrumented panel and associated instrumentation hardware. Provide expertise for vibration, shock, electromagnetic interference/electromagnetic compatibility (EMI/EMC), thermal, and other applicable flight-environment qualification testing. Assess instrumentation performance before, during, and following environmental testing to identify sensor, wiring, connector, mounting, or data acquisition issues. Support ground testing, vehicle integration, pre-flight checkout, flight-test readiness activities, and post-flight instrumentation assessment.

Provide practical recommendations for improving instrumentation reliability, maintainability, and data quality for subsequent flight tests.

Required Skills:

Due to the sensitivity of customer related requirements, U.S. Citizenship is required. 10 years of experience w/ a Master’s degree in mechanical engineering, aeronautical engineering or related engineering field. Experience supporting hypersonic, high-speed flight, missiles, launch vehicle, or other severe environment test programs. Experience instrumenting thin structural panels or structures subjected to combining aerodynamic, thermal, vibration, and acoustic environments. Familiarity with high temperature instrumentation and installation techniques.

Experience with high channel count and/or high sample rate flight data acquisition systems.

Experience with instrumentation systems constrained by vehicle power, bandwidth, telemetry, and onboard data-storage limitations. Familiarity with flight qualification standards and practices such as MIL-STD-810, MIL-STD-461, or program-specific environmental qualification requirements. Experience supporting test readiness reviews, instrumentation readiness reviews, qualification testing, and flight readiness activities. Extensive experience as a senior-level aerospace instrumentation technician, instrumentation specialist, flight-test technician, or equivalent. Demonstrated hands-on experience instrumenting aerospace structures, flight vehicles, propulsion systems, or similarly demanding test articles.

Strong experience with sensor installation, wiring, connectors, grounding/shielding, signal conditioning, calibration, and data acquisition systems.

Experience with multiple sensor types such as strain gauges, thermocouples/temperature sensors,…