Orbit Determination and Navigation Engineer II,III

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Full Time AZ, US

Orbit Determination and Navigation Engineer

Level II,III

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 II (Professional Engineer) or Level III (Lead) to join the OD group within FDI. Level II engineers independently execute routine OD analyses and navigation products. Level III engineers lead assigned OD efforts, develop analysis approaches, and guide others in technical execution and quality. 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.
• Independently execute routine OD analyses and generate navigation products using approved tools.
• Configure estimation runs, assess residuals and covariance outputs, and evaluate solution behavior.
• Plan assigned analyses, identify data and resource needs, estimate effort, assess risks, and coordinate schedules.
• Test more complex solutions and troubleshoot issues, seeking guidance when needed.
• Develop and maintain OD scripts and workflows, verify results, and document changes.
• Prepare technical reports, communicate findings to mission teams and customers, and ensure assigned products meet applicable quality standards.

Additional Level III responsibilities

• 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,…