Senior Aerodynamics AnalystNew
The opportunity
Rocket Lab is the end-to-end space company building rockets, spacecraft, and critical subsystems that keep the world connected, protected, expand humanity’s reach to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. We move fast, build real hardware for meaningful missions, and make the impossible routine.
What you'll do
Generate aerotables and characterise vehicle performance—covering stability,: control authority, loads, pressure distributions, and aerodynamic design of vehicle control surfaces
Perform, validate, and document CFD analyses of external flow across: hypersonic, transonic and subsonic regimes, and characterise aerodynamic and heating environments, transients, and separation events
Model plumes and plume interactions (base heating, PIFS, impingement) and: define re-entry architecture, including ballistic coefficients, ConOps, and compartment venting
Work closely with design and test engineers to iterate design concepts,: determine test requirements, and demonstrate positive margins through numerical analysis, and physical test
Works closely with the GNC team to enable them to safely land and recover Neutron’s 1st Stage
Process and interpret ground test and flight data—confirming MPE bounds,: detecting out-of-family results, and resolving sensor configuration issues
What they're looking for
- A degree in Mechanical or Aerospace Engineering or similar field
- + years industry experience, ideally from the Aerospace, Automotive, or Marine industries
- A keen physics and first principles-based approach to problem solving
- Expertise with one or more industry standard CFD packages: Fluent, CFX, STAR-CCM+
