Fluids Analyst

JOB DESCRIPTION

Cowboy Space Corp. is building the infrastructure to power and connect the orbital economy. Our satellites operate in Low Earth Orbit to collect sunlight and enable a new class of capabilities—from powering on-orbit compute, to transmitting energy via infrared lasers (space-to-earth and space-to-space), to delivering secure, high-bandwidth optical data. By rethinking how energy and data are generated and distributed in space, we’re unlocking entirely new ways to operate both in orbit and on Earth.

Founded in 2024 by Baiju Bhatt (co‑founder of Robinhood), Cowboy Space Corp. is backed by leading investors and built by a team from top aerospace and defense organizations. We’re moving quickly to solve complex technical challenges and build a new category of space infrastructure.

As a Fluids Analyst, you will own fluids prediction for the team — the models, the analysis, and the data that back every fluid system decision we make. You are accountable for the full lifecycle of that prediction: standing up early system models before hardware exists, sizing and trading architectures against pressure drop, flow capability, and thermal performance, then closing the loop by reducing test data and correlating it back into the models.

You will work closely with fluids design, propulsion, thermal, structures, and test operations, and your predictions will directly set or verify component sizing, test objectives, and flight limits. This is a hands‑on analysis role for someone who wants to be in the test bay watching the data come in, not just running cases. You’ll be expected to move quickly, iterate often, and take full ownership of the fluid models the team relies on.

• Own the full lifecycle of fluids prediction and data for the team — from first-order sizing models through correlated, test‑anchored models used for flight.
• Build and maintain 1D fluid network and transient system models of engine and vehicle fluid systems to predict pressure drop, flow capability, and thermal performance.
• Perform early‑phase simulation and trade studies to inform architecture selection, line and orifice sizing, valve and regulator selection, and pressurization schedules before hardware is committed.
• Predict flow capability and pressure budgets across the system: line and fitting losses, flow distribution and manifold balance, cavitation and choked‑flow margin, NPSH, and engine inlet conditions.
• Analyze transient behavior — water hammer, priming and chill‑in, valve sequencing, blowdown and ullage collapse, tank pressurization and thermal stratification.
• Perform CFD analysis of valves, manifolds, and other internal‑flow components to resolve loss coefficients, flow distribution, and local behavior that lumped models cannot capture.
• Perform thermal‑fluid analysis including two‑phase and cryogenic behavior, heat leak, insulation performance, and conjugate heat transfer in fluid components.
• Define the instrumentation and measurement requirements needed to validate your models — specify what gets measured, where, at what rate, and to what accuracy.
• Support component‑level and system‑level test campaigns: write analysis‑driven test objectives and predictions and set red lines and expected values.
• Own reduction and analytics of fluids test data — build the data pipelines, automate processing across runs, quantify uncertainty, and turn raw channels into engineering quantities.
• Correlate models against test and flight data, quantify model error, and drive the updates that improve predictive accuracy over time.
• Establish and maintain the team's analysis methods, model libraries, fluid property data, and validation standards so results are repeatable and reviewable.
• Perform anomaly investigation and root cause analysis using test and flight data; reconstruct off‑nominal events and recommend corrective action.
• Balance model fidelity against schedule — know when a hand calculation is sufficient and when the problem warrants CFD.
• Communicate analysis results and their uncertainty clearly to designers, test engineers, and leadership, and document methods, assumptions, and conclusions in review‑ready form.