Senior Systems Engineer – Mission Analyst

Please Note: To conform with the United States Government Space Technology Export Regulations, the applicant must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., conditional resident, asylum‑seeker or refugee (protected individuals as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3)), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State.

At Cesium Astro
, we are developers and pioneers of out‑of‑the‑box communication systems for satellites, UAVs, launch vehicles, and other space and airborne platforms. We take pride in our dynamic and cross‑functional work environment, which allows us to learn, develop, and engage across our organization. If you are looking for hands‑on, interactive, and autonomous work, Cesium Astro is the place for you. We are actively seeking passionate, collaborative, energetic, and forward‑thinking individuals to join our team.

The Senior Staff Systems Engineer – Mission Analyst is a recognized technical expert responsible for leading the design, analysis, modeling, and optimization of satellite missions and low Earth orbit (LEO) constellations across multiple programs. This role defines and influences mission architecture, constellation strategy, and long‑term orbital operations concepts to ensure mission performance, resilience, scalability, and sustainability.

This position operates as a technical authority within a multidisciplinary engineering environment, providing leadership in mission analysis, constellation design, orbital dynamics, and system‑level trade studies. The Senior Staff Systems Engineer partners with engineering leadership, program stakeholders, and customers to shape requirements, evaluate architectural trades, and drive data‑informed decisions from early concept development through deployment, operations, replenishment, and end‑of‑life planning.

• Lead development of mission analysis frameworks, simulation architectures, and advanced modeling tools for LEO constellation design and optimization.
• Define and influence constellation architecture, including sizing, orbital placement, coverage strategy, and long‑term scalability.
• Lead system‑level trade studies and evaluate competing mission architectures, orbital configurations, and operational concepts.
• Establish technical baselines for constellation performance, operational constraints, and mission design assumptions.
• Provide technical direction and expert review of mission analysis products across multiple programs and engineering teams.
• Drive alignment between mission requirements, system design, and operational feasibility.
• Serve as technical authority for orbital mechanics, constellation dynamics, and long‑term orbital behavior modeling.
• Lead analysis of perturbation effects including gravity harmonics, atmospheric drag, solar radiation pressure, and related environmental influences.
• Define strategies for constellation maintenance, including station‑keeping, orbit optimization, and collision risk mitigation.
• Lead planning for constellation replenishment, replacement strategies, and end‑of‑life disposal to ensure long‑term sustainability and regulatory compliance.
• Develop and guide autonomous constellation control strategies and high‑level operational concepts for fleet‑wide management.
• Provide expert‑level recommendations on constellation resilience, robustness, and operational efficiency.
• Lead system‑level analysis of communications performance including coverage, capacity, latency, and connectivity across constellation architectures.
• Integrate communications constraints and performance drivers into mission and constellation design decisions.
• Partner with systems engineering and communications teams to define mission requirements, performance metrics, and operational constraints.
• Evaluate mission impacts of communications architecture trade‑offs and provide senior technical recommendations.
• Ensure alignment between system performance models and end‑to‑end mission objectives.
• Serve as a senior technical advisor to systems engineering, spacecraft engineering, flight software, mission operations, and program leadership teams.
• Lead technical reviews, architecture…