Mission Design Lead

The posting, as Stoke Space wrote it

At Stoke, we believe a thriving space economy will enable a vibrant, sustainable, and equitable future here on Earth. That is why we’re building Nova, our fully and rapidly reusable launch vehicle. Designed for daily flight, Nova tackles the core challenges of space transportation by reducing cost, increasing availability, and improving reliability. By radically lowering launch costs and increasing flight cadence, we’re helping create a truly scalable space industry.

Our team is mission-driven, collaborative, and empowered to take ownership of their work. If you want to work alongside some of the most dedicated and talented people on Earth, we’d love to have you join us.

This is a new organization within Stoke, with a goal to develop products on a 3–10 year horizon that grow Stoke beyond launch. Nova moves mass to orbit. This group takes on what comes next: spacecraft and on-orbit mobility that move mass to any orbit, downmass that returns it to Earth, and the satellites, platforms and factories that put mass to work once it is there. The organization is small by design, and everyone here carries a second hat.

Description

As Mission Design Lead you own mission design for everything the new organization builds. You answer the two questions every product here starts with: given a spacecraft, what missions can it perform, and given a mission, what spacecraft does it take. You will design and compare trajectories across LEO, MEO, GEO, cislunar and lunar space, from orbital transfer and long-dwell to refueling logistics, constellation deployment and return to Earth, and turn them into delta-v budgets, propulsion sizing inputs, timelines and requirements for the group's products. Your trajectories feed the rest of the analysis: thermal environments for propellant management, aerothermal loads for aerobraking and reentry, power and eclipse profiles, communication geometry. You will build and maintain the in-house trajectory and mission-analysis tools so that every product in the portfolio is evaluated on the same physics. You must be ready to stay focused, move fast, self-direct, and learn on the fly.

Key responsibilities

• Design, optimize and compare trajectories and mission profiles across LEO, MEO, GEO, cislunar and lunar regimes for the group's products.
• Map vehicle capability to mission capability and back: delta-v budgets, propellant and timeline trades across chemical, electric and multi-mode propulsion, and the mission-class definitions that drive vehicle requirements.
• Provide trajectory-derived inputs to other studies: thermal and radiation environments, aerothermal loads for atmospheric flight phases, eclipse and power profiles, ground-contact and communication geometry.
• Build and maintain the organization's trajectory and mission-analysis tooling (own code plus industry packages such as GMAT, Copernicus, FreeFlyer, STK or POST2).
• Define GNC and flight-dynamics requirements that flow from the mission design, and verify

[…]
dent of the U.S. (i.e., current Green Card holder), or protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3).

Equal Opportunity

The Company is an Equal Opportunity Employer, including with respect to disability and veteran status. It is committed to compliance with all equal opportunity laws, including the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and Title VII. It does not discriminate on the basis of nationality, race, citizenship, immigration status, or any other protected class when it comes to employment practices, including hiring.

Employment at the Company is contingent upon satisfactory completion of reference and background checks, and on your ability to prove your identity and authorization to work in the U.S. for the Company. Employees must comply with the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services employment verification requirements, and, therefore, they must complete an Employment Eligibility Verification Form I-9 at the start of employment and re-verify authorization to work periodically.

Separate from this I-9 process, as noted above, this position entails access to certain technology and technical data that is restricted under U.S. export control laws and regulations. Employment or continued employment may be conditioned on your legal authorization to work with or have access to export control materials as necessary to perform your job.

Candidate Rights & Accommodations

If you require a reasonable accommodation to complete the application or participate in the interview process, please contact careers@stokespace.com . Requests will be handled in accordance with applicable laws. Please do not include medical or other confidential information in your initial request.

For more information about your rights, please refer to the "Know Your Rights" notice here .

E-Verify

Stoke Space uses E-Verify to confirm the identity and employment eligibility of all new hires.

For more information on the right to work, please refer to the poster here .