Description

Responsibilities

• Own and maintain end-to-end optical communications link budget models for free-space optical communications systems.
• Develop architecture models for space-to-ground and space-to-space lasercom links across relevant mission regimes.
• Quantify link margin, data rate, acquisition margin, and sensitivity to major terminal design choices.
• Model optical transmitter and receiver performance from electrical input through propagation to detected signal.
• Lead architecture trades across aperture size, transmit power, modulation, coding, pointing stability, atmospheric loss, and receiver sensitivity.
• Incorporate relevant assumptions from terrestrial fiber communications and high-data-rate optical hardware into space-based optical communications architecture trades.
• Support PAT architecture by modeling pointing and acquisition sensitivity as it affects link closure and terminal design.

Minimum Qualifications

• Degree or equivalent experience in optical engineering, electrical engineering, aerospace engineering, physics, applied math, or a related technical field.
• 8+ years of demonstrated experience building physics-based engineering models in Python, MATLAB, or a similar environment.
• Strong fundamentals in optics, communications, radiometry, statistics, signal processing, or related disciplines.
• Ability to work across disciplines and clearly communicate assumptions, sensitivities, margins, and technical risk.
• Experience with optical communications, RF communications, telecom systems, high-speed electrical/optical hardware, or related system-level communications architecture.

Preferred Skills and Experience

• 8+ years of demonstrated experience with free-space optical communications, lasercom, optical link budgets, or optical terminal architecture.
• 8+ years of demonstrated experience with terrestrial fiber communications, coherent optical communications, high-data-rate ground hardware, or telecom systems.
• Experience with coherent or direct-detection optical communications and receiver sensitivity analysis.
• Familiarity with optical transmitter or receiver hardware such as EDFAs, modulators, fiber optics, photodetectors, coherent receivers, or telescope systems.
• Experience modeling atmospheric propagation, turbulence, cloud statistics, weather data, or optical site availability.
• Experience with PAT, jitter, beam steering, fiber coupling, pointing loss, or terminal pointing requirements.
• Space hardware, spacecraft, or mission architecture experience is helpful but not required.

About Impulse Space