Mechanical Test Engineer, Deployable Antenna Structures

We are looking for a hands-on Mechanical Test Engineer to own ground testing of the physical unfolding of E-Space’s large deployable antenna structure. You will work with deployable structures, deployment mechanisms, test fixtures, and gravity-offload equipment: building test setups, operating hardware, measuring its motion and forces, and investigating unexpected behavior.

You will turn hardware observations into evidence that the antenna can deploy reliably and reach its required geometry. This role calls for mechanical intuition, careful experimentation, and the ability to distinguish the behavior of the antenna from effects introduced by the ground test equipment.

On-site in Arlington, Texas. Hands-on bench work and test facility presence are required. Some travel between sites expected.

• Own the antenna assembly’s mechanical deployment test program, from test requirements and procedures through fixture development, test execution, data reduction, and reporting.
• Design, build, and improve gravity-offload and support fixtures for large flexible structures. Characterize rig friction and compliance so their effects can be separated from antenna behavior.
• Set up and run physical deployment tests. Measure force and torque profiles, boom tip trajectories, deployment timing, and deployed shape using appropriate instrumentation and optical measurement methods.
• Investigate unexpected motion, inconsistent deployment, and geometry outliers through inspection, measurements, and controlled follow-up tests.
• Establish deployment repeatability against defined requirements, and characterize sensitivity to sequencing, temperature, and lubricant state where required by the test plan.
• Work with the deployment mechanism team to characterize actuator output and locked-state stiffness and backlash.
• Coordinate subsystem testing and assembly-level deployment testing with the responsible engineers.
• Work with the IAS structures analyst to correlate test results with the structural and deployment models, quantify ground-test artifacts, and bound what the results establish about flight deployment.

• BS, MS, or PhD in Mechanical or Aerospace Engineering, or equivalent practical engineering experience.
• Hands-on experience testing physical mechanisms or deployable hardware, with clear examples of personally setting up, operating, measuring, and troubleshooting hardware.
• Practical mechanical judgment: able to reason about forces, motion, friction, stiffness, alignment, and the influence of a test fixture on the hardware being measured.
• Experience developing test procedures and using force, torque, motion, or optical measurement instrumentation to obtain repeatable data.
• Ability to investigate an anomaly systematically and explain what the evidence supports, what remains uncertain, and what to test next.
• Understanding that a ground test under gravity does not automatically reproduce flight deployment conditions.

• Deployment testing of antennas, solar arrays, booms, or other flexible flight structures.
• Design or operation of gravity-offload rigs, including characterization of friction and support compliance.
• Experience with deployable booms (rollable, telescoping, hinged, or coilable lattice) and membrane or other tensioned deployable hardware.
• Photogrammetry or other optical measurement of deployed shape and motion.
• Experience with mechanism friction and lubrication across temperature ranges, thermal-vacuum deployment tests, or deployment model-test correlation.