About this role
Astrolab is The Lunar Operations Company. We design and build the systems and hardware the lunar economy will come to depend on — rovers, power, and data networks for sustained operations on the Moon. We are focused on the problems that must be solved before the next chapter of human exploration can scale. The Moon does not forgive untested assumptions. The people who work here know that, and they wouldn't have it any other way. Astrolab is seeking a control systems engineer to support development of active thermal control systems for extra-terrestrial rovers with highly constrained power and energy budgets. Thermal control system development will include simulation, analysis, and design of vehicle thermal control systems; identification and sizing of thermal control system sensors and actuators (heaters or other); analysis, characterization, verification, and validation of thermal control system performance; gain tuning; and supporting integrated hardware/software testing to verify thermal control system performance. Work with stakeholders to define thermal control system requirements from vehicle and subsystem level functional and performance requirements Design, develop, tune, verify, and validate vehicle thermal control system performance Build simulation and modeling tools for thermal control system design, analysis and tuning in appropriate tools and mature models as additional test data becomes available Design and prototype appropriate controllers that meet the defined requirements using simulations and control system design tools Define sizing and placement of thermal control system components such as RTDs, heaters, radiators, etc. to ensure efficient, effective vehicle thermal control Analyze and tune controller performance, stability, and robustness using the system simulations and TVAC test data Develop control system documentation and work with vehicle software team to convert controller prototypes into flight code, including supporting unit and integrated testing of flight implementations Support calibration of thermal control system sensors and implementation of calibration in flight software