Propulsion Analyst, CFD

ABOUT FIREFLY AEROSPACE

As an end-to-end responsive space company, Firefly Aerospace is on a mission to enable our world to launch, land, and operate in space – anywhere, anytime. Our small- to medium-lift launch vehicles, lunar landers, and orbital vehicles allow us to service the entire lifecycle of government and commercial missions from low Earth orbit to the Moon and beyond. We utilize carbon composite structures, patented propulsion technologies, and common components across our vehicles to iterate quickly, improve reliability, and deliver payloads at a lower cost. This position is located at our headquarters office in Cedar Park, TX.

Firefly seeks a highly talented Propulsion Analysis Engineer experienced in CFD to join our growing analysis team. As a Propulsion Analyst you will use your expert knowledge of CFD along with fluids, thermal, and propulsion analysis to verify and influence designs of component and systems-level propulsion hardware. This role will play a key part in this group by contributing to the overall development of the propulsion simulation infrastructure. Propulsion analysts are involved throughout the engineering process and therefore require excellent interdisciplinary communication skills.

• Perform detailed steady state and pseudo-steady state propulsion system analysis.
• Perform CFD on fluid and propulsion systems.
• Work closely with multi-disciplinary propulsion and systems engineering teams to define the operating conditions and control systems of Firefly’s engines.
• Responsible for data reduction activities to characterize propulsion system performance with an emphasis on automating several portions of this workflow.
• Develop well documented codes or procedures for performing thermal and fluid analyses, and postprocessing test results.
• Responsible for updating and correlating models based on test and flight data.
• Evaluate analysis and test results to quantify sensitivities and uncertainties, calibrate simulations, and develop design recommendations.
• Maintain and report on activity, schedule, and technical status.
• Document analysis and test results for review by responsible engineers, peers, customers, and launch authorities.
• Responsible for reviewing the analysis of peers and mentor less experienced engineers.
• Work with responsible engineers to determine instrumentation setup for testing and contribute to the creation of test plans.

Required

• BS degree in aerospace or mechanical engineering or related field and 3+ years of experience in mechanical or aerospace engineering.
• 2+ years of experience with industrial CFD tools such as STAR-CCM+, Fluent, CFX, or OpenFOAM.
• Proficient with 3D & 2D CAD software packages such as Siemens NX, Autodesk Inventor, SolidWorks, or CATIA.
• Experience in an engineering software environment.
• Proficient in the physics of bipropellant rocket engines, including compressible and incompressible flow, thermodynamics, multiphase flow, chemical kinetics, mechanics, and transient phenomena.
• Programming experience with at least one compiled computer language (preferably FORTRAN or C/C++) and one interpreted language (preferably Python or MATLAB) for model development and scripting.
• Experience in data reduction and model validation techniques with engine test data.
• Familiarity with source code control systems such as Bitbucket.
• Familiarity with Linux

Desired

• MS/PhD degree in aerospace or mechanical engineering and/or 5+ years of experience.
• 4+ years of experience with industrial CFD tools such as STAR-CCM+, Fluent, CFX, or OpenFOAM.
• Significant experience working in a high-performance computing (HPC) environment
• Experience with industrial finite element tools such as ANSYS, ABAQUS, FEMAP, or NASTRAN.
• Experience with ROCCID, RTE, CEA, TDK, SINDA/FLUINT, ROCETS, GFSSP, or equivalent and general industry-standard propulsion design and analysis codes.
• Experience in analysis of aircraft or space vehicles during all phases of conceptual design through flight.
• Familiarity with parametric optimization techniques.
• Knowledge of statistical principles (Monte Carlo, regression, Kalman filtering).
• Experience with database development and management.

To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) you must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. Learn more about the ITAR here.

Firefly offers outstanding benefits for our employees, including generous health, dental and vision plans with low plan deductibles, parental leave, educational reimbursement, short term disability, and flexible PTO options.

To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) you must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State.

Firefly Aerospace, Inc. is an Equal Opportunity Employer; employment with Firefly is governed based on merit, competence and qualifications and will not be influenced in any manner by race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, mental or physical disability or any other legally protected status