Senior Thermal Engineer, Lunar

The role

You will own thermal architecture and analysis for lunar surface elements including a power station, crewed habitat, airlock, and node. You will define, analyze, and qualify thermal control hardware such as radiators, fluid loops, and survival heating architecture.

What you will do

• Define thermal control architecture for lunar surface elements
• Size and place radiators for the lunar surface environment
• Own the survival thermal case through lunar night
• Own habitat, airlock, and node thermal control
• Build and maintain detailed system thermal models
• Own the thermal budget for components across various mission phases
• Select thermal coatings, MLI, heat pipes, thermal straps, isolators, heaters, and RTDs
• Plan and execute TVAC and thermal balance test campaigns
• Establish thermal design standards, margin policy, and lunar environment definitions
• Support design reviews, drawing checks, and NASA technical deliverables

Required qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Physics or a related technical discipline
• 6+ years of spacecraft or aerospace thermal engineering experience
• Spacecraft thermal control design and analysis experience
• Built and correlated thermal models for flight hardware
• Experience with extreme-environment or wide-swing thermal design where both hot and cold cases were design-driving
• Familiar with thermal coatings, MLI, radiators, heat pipes, thermal straps, and heater/thermostat design
• Comfortable working during early architecture phases
• Experience across multiple thermal analysis tools (Thermal Desktop, SINDA/FLUINT, ESATAN, or equivalent)
• Willingness to work evenings and/or weekends to support critical mission milestones
• Ability to travel up to 5% of the time to support customer meetings

Nice to have

• TVAC and thermal balance test planning and execution experience
• Lunar or planetary surface thermal experience, including diurnal survival design (thermal switches) and regolith conduction modeling
• Crewed vehicle thermal experience: cabin ATCS, condensing heat exchangers, humidity control, ECLSS thermal interfaces, or touch temperature compliance for human-rated hardware
• Airlock, EVA systems, or suit thermal experience, including depress/repress thermal transients
• Pumped fluid loop design - working fluid selection, pump and accumulator sizing, freeze protection, and loop control
• Familiarity with lunar dust effects on thermo-optical properties and dust mitigation strategies

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision coverage for employees and dependents
• Generous paid time off
• Up to 20+ days of vacation for exempt staff
• Up to 10+ days of vacation for non-exempt staff with the ability to cash-out unused vacation annually
• Paid parental leave
• Short and long-term disability insurance
• Life insurance
• Access to a 401(k) retirement plan
• ClassPass credits
• Personalized mental healthcare through Spring Health
• Snacks, drip coffee & onsite barista, cold drinks, and dinner meals remaining free of charge
• Lunch subsidized

About the company

Vast is developing next-generation space stations and space infrastructure. The company is headquartered in Long Beach, California, and has more than 1,000 employees.