Position Details

Location: Los Angeles (Hawthorne), CA

Employment Type: Full-time

Department: Starlight Solar

Travel: Occasional

The Mission

Starpath develops and manufactures the technologies that will enable humans to live on the Moon and Mars. Today, we are building robotic systems that locally produce the essential commodities a lunar civilization will require at extreme scale: water, power, and oxygen. Our ultimate goal is to build and operate a self-sustaining city on Mars.

Mechanical Engineer (Structures) - Space Solar

The Structures team designs and builds the mechanical backbone of Starpath's hardware — the primary and secondary structures, mechanisms, and interfaces that must survive the punishing loads of launch and the extreme environments of space and planetary surfaces. From the systems that produce water, power, and oxygen on the Moon to the equipment bound for Mars, every subsystem depends on structures that are light, strong, and manufacturable at rate.

As a Mechanical Engineer on the Structures team, you will own load-bearing hardware from concept through flight — designing, analyzing, testing, and qualifying the structures that hold Starpath's systems together.

Responsibilities

Own mechanical structures from concept through detailed design, analysis, fabrication, test, and flight — including primary and secondary structures, brackets, housings, and mechanisms

Perform structural analysis using hand calculations and FEA to size hardware for launch, landing, thermal, and operational loads, maintaining positive margins with appropriate factors of safety

Generate detailed manufacturing and assembly drawings with proper GD&T, and select materials, fasteners, and joining methods suited to the space environment

Define and execute structural qualification and acceptance testing — static load, vibration, shock, and modal — and correlate analytical models to test data

Work closely with manufacturing to design for manufacturability and rate, and with thermal, avionics, propulsion, and controls teams to integrate structures into the larger system

Drive mass optimization and design simplification without compromising structural integrity

Push back on unnecessary complexity — simplify load paths, reduce part count, and cut overhead wherever it doesn't add value

Required Qualifications

Bachelor's or advanced degree in mechanical, aerospace, structural, or a related engineering discipline

1+ years of mechanical design or structural engineering experience (internship and academic experience applicable)

Proficiency with 3D CAD and the ability to produce detailed engineering drawings with GD&T

Preferred Qualifications

Master's degree in an engineering discipline

Proficiency with FEA tools (e.g., Nastran, Abaqus, Ansys, or Femap) for static, dynamic, thermal, and fatigue analysis

Experience designing flight hardware that has survived launch and operated in space, or other high-reliability hardware for extreme environments

Familiarity with launch and landing load environments — quasi-static loads, random vibration, shock, and coupled loads analysis

Hands-on structural test experience — static load, vibration, shock, and modal survey — including test-to-model correlation

Experience with lightweight, load-optimized structures across machined, sheet-metal, welded, and composite/bonded construction

Knowledge of materials selection, fasteners, and joint design for thermal cycling, vacuum, and radiation environments

Experience designing mechanisms such as deployables, hinges, latches, and actuators

Familiarity with aerospace structural standards and margin policies (e.g., NASA-STD-5001, GEVS)

Exposure to aerospace, space, or other high-reliability hardware environments

EAR Requirements

To conform to U.S. Government export regulations, you must be a (i) U.S. citizen or national, (ii) U.S. lawful, permanent resident (aka green card holder), (iii) Refugee under 8 U.S.C. § 1157, or (iv) Asylee under 8 U.S.C. § 1158, or be eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State.