Aerothermal Engineer

Dispatch builds reentry vehicles for in-space manufacturing. Compatible with most launch vehicles, we host production in microgravity, and return the product to Earth. First customers are semiconductor companies growing crystals better than anything manufacturable on the ground.

We are constructing the infrastructure that allows the space economy to scale. From the reliable return of biological samples to the mass production of next-gen semiconductors, Dispatch provides the power, the platform, and the path home.

Own the aerothermal environment for a reentry vehicle, from first CFD run to flight-validated heat shield.

About the role

You'll be our founding aerothermal engineer and the person responsible for predicting and surviving the reentry heating environment. This is a founding role. You'll own the aerothermodynamic analysis of our reentry vehicle, size the thermal protection system, and define the aeroheating loads that every other subsystem designs against.

At our stage, this means you're doing the simulations and defending the results in hardware. You'll work directly with both founders on a daily basis. Both founders are ex-Astranis. Andrew led the avionics team, Payton was chief engineer on their next-gen satellite line.

Responsibilities

• Run hypersonic and aerothermal CFD across the reentry trajectory (peak heating, integrated heat load, transition)

• Size and validate the thermal protection system against predicted heating environments

• Define aeroheating and aerodynamic loads that drive structures, GNC, and TPS design

• Build and maintain reentry simulation workflows

• Correlate models against flight, and ground test data

• Support trajectory and vehicle shape trades to manage the heating environment

Required qualifications

• 3+ years in aerothermal, hypersonics, or reentry aerodynamics on flight or flight-relevant programs

• Hands-on hypersonic and/or aerothermal simulation experience

• Direct experience with reentry vehicles or high-speed atmospheric entry

• Proficiency with hyStrath, FUN3D, LAURA, or comparable hypersonic CFD tools

• Comfortable working across disciplines at an early-stage company

• Must be a US person. US export control (ITAR/EAR) requires this.

Nice to have

• FUN3D or LAURA experience specifically

• TPS material selection and ablation modeling

• Boundary layer transition prediction

• Wind tunnel or arc jet test experience

• US government or NASA program background

About Dispatch

Dispatch builds reentry vehicles for in-space manufacturing. Compatible with most launch vehicles, we host production in microgravity, and return the product to Earth. First customers are semiconductor companies growing crystals better than anything manufacturable on the ground.

We are constructing the infrastructure that allows the space economy to scale. From the reliable return of biological samples to the mass production of next-gen semiconductors, Dispatch provides the power, the platform, and the path home.

Dispatch is building an autonomous reentry vehicle in house. The key technical challenge is making reentry cheap and repeatable; We do this with a proprietary heat shield made from industrial ceramics that costs 1% of traditional thermal protection systems.

We build the full satellite in house. The vehicle is designed for reuse - the heat shield is the primary consumable, replaceable in a 2-week turnaround.

You'll see your work in orbit within 12 months. If surviving Mach 20 reentry, iterating on flight hardware in days instead of years, and building the physical layer of the space economy sounds like your kind of fun, we should talk.

• 15-30 min phone intro with CEO
• 1 Hour phone deep dive with CTO
• 1 Hour in person with CEO