Satellite Systems Engineer - ADCS

Location: Hybrid, Munich

Team & Reporting line:  Satellite Systems team, reporting to the Satellite Systems Lead

Our Mission 

At constellr, we're harnessing the power of space to solve one of Earth’s greatest challenges: climate resilience & security in a changing world. Our thermal satellite constellation delivers the most accurate land surface temperature data on the market, equipping commercial players, governments, defence agencies, and global institutions with the thermal intelligence they need to make strategic decisions– from national security and infrastructure to agriculture and climate resilience. 
 
As a fast-scaling company with offices in Brussels, Freiburg, Munich, Washington and Toulouse, our multidisciplinary team of engineers, scientists, and strategists is building the future of space-based Earth observation.

Your Role:

We are seeking a highly motivated Satellite Systems Engineer with ADCS experience to join our spacecraft engineering team. In this role, you will carry out system engineering activities that ensure our satellites are successfully realised through to launch and on-orbit operations, while owning the attitude determination and control domain that underpins the pointing performance, stability, and agility our thermal infrared payload demands.

You will act as a technical interface across engineering, programme management, PA, and AIT, and work closely with the Payload, Mission Operations, Flight Dynamics, and Data Analytics teams as well as the satellite platform provider — translating mission and payload needs into clear system and ADCS requirements, reviewing technical evidence, preparing for operations, and monitoring on-orbit performance.

Key Responsibilities:

System Engineering Tasks:

• Serve as the technical point of contact between engineering and programme management.

• Serve as coordinator between AIT engineering and PA to ensure proper quality control and monitoring according to PA processes.

• Support project management with schedule planning and adherence, holding regular progress reviews with subcontractors.

• Coordinate the definition of requirements and ensure proper flow-down from mission to system and subsystem level, managing verification and close-out.

• Oversee the satellite system architecture and ensure subsystem interfaces are consistent and compatible.

• Oversee the work of subcontractors by reviewing and approving submitted designs, verifying compliance with technical requirements, industry regulations, and contractual obligations, and monitoring milestones for timely completion.

• Coordinate system-level technical reviews such as SRR, PDR, CDR, IRR, and TRR.

• Identify technical risks across the project, develop mitigation strategies, maintain the risk register alongside project managers, and prepare contingency plans.

• Plan and manage verification activities with the AIT teams, ensuring tests are conducted correctly, results are accurately reported, and final documentation is complete, accurate, and appropriately stored.

• Support LEOP, in-orbit commissioning, and flight operational planning and execution, providing support to operations teams on anomaly resolution as needed.

ADCS Engineering Tasks:

• Translate payload imaging, calibration, pointing, slew, and stability needs into ADCS requirements, constraints, and interface inputs.

• Review ADCS-related design documentation, pointing budgets, analyses, test procedures, results, and verification evidence provided by the platform supplier, identifying gaps and challenging assumptions constructively.

• Support technical exchanges and reviews with the platform provider, ensuring ADCS assumptions, risks, actions, and open points are clearly tracked.

• Contribute to mission CONOPS, spacecraft mode definitions, operational constraints, commissioning plans, and operations procedures from an ADCS perspective.

• Work alongside Payload, Mission Operations, and Flight Dynamics teams so that attitude modes, slew profiles, target acquisition, calibration activities, and imaging operations support mission performance.

• Support investigations of anomalies or performance deviations of an ADCS nature and spacecraft pointing performance, coordinating with internal teams and the platform provider as required.