Instrumentation and Controls Engineer 2 - Operations

The floodgates are open after another Chinese company lands a reusable rocket. "We will put the booster back into service for another flight as soon as possible." It has been a little more than a month since China recovered an orbital-class rocket booster for the first time. A second launch operator accomplished a similar feat Tuesday in another sign of China's growing launch capability. It took 10 years for a second US launch company, Blue Origin, to propulsively land an orbital-class booster after SpaceX did it with the Falcon 9 rocket in 2015. SpaceX has since added a second reusable rocket to its fleet with Starship and its Super Heavy booster. Perhaps a third American company will join SpaceX and Blue Origin's club in 2027. Rocket Lab, Stoke Space, Relativity Space, and Firefly Aerospace - working in partnership with Northrop Grumman - are working on reusable rockets that could make their first flights in the next couple of years. A similar number of launch companies are working on reusable rockets in China. Some of them operate under the auspices of the sprawling state-owned China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC). Others are more commercial in nature, driven by capital investment from private industry. After years of development, these Chinese launch companies made their first attempts to land their new rocket boosters last December. A company named LandSpace was first when it launched the first test flight of its new Zhuque-3 rocket. The rocket successfully reached orbit but missed its landing. Later that month, CASC's Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology launched a new rocket named the Long March 12A with similar results. Then, a third rocket, the Long March 10B from another CASC division, became the first to achieve a successful booster recovery July 10. The Long March 10B's first stage was caught by a net recovery mechanism on an offshore platform in the South China Sea. Now, 40 days later, LandSpace's Zhuque-3 has flown again, this time on a flight punctuated by a picture-perfect landing of its first-stage booster in northwestern China. Landing from space. The Zhuque-3, or ZQ-3, rocket lifted off from a commercial launch zone at China's Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center at 7:35 pm EDT (23:35 UTC) Tuesday, about an hour after sunrise Wednesday at the spaceport in the Gobi Desert. Nine methane-fueled engines powered the 216-foot-tall (66-meter) rocket on a course southeast from Jiuquan, then the rocket's upper stage took over the task of placing a single satellite into orbit. The rocket's first stage, made of stainless steel, soared to the edge of space, then maneuvered toward a prepared landing zone some 240 miles (390 kilometers) downrange, settling to a propulsive touchdown on four extendable landing legs. LandSpace, founded in 2015, declared the mission a total success. MISSION SUCCESS | ZhuQue-3 Y2 Reusable Launch Vehicle Achieved Full Success in Orbital Insertion and First-Stage Recovery "This mission marks China's first-ever successful recovery attempt of the first stage of an orbital-class launch vehicle using landing legs, and China's first successful booster recovery on land," LandSpace said in a statement. "It is a pivotal flight test for Zhuque-3 as it transitions from the technological demonstration and verification phase toward the engineering application phase of reusability." LandSpace's engineers made several changes to the rocket after the crash landing of the first Zhuque-3 booster in December. The updates included using just a single engine for the final phase of landing and modifications to the rocket's heat shield for protection from reentry conditions. "This mission lays a solid foundation for subsequent stages, including post-recovery inspection and maintenance, reuse flights, and commercial applications," LandSpace said. "The first stage underwent high-altitude gliding, followed by ignition for deceleration upon re-entry, aerodynamic glide control, and finally, a landing burn to slow down," Dai Zheng, head of the Zhuque-3 project at LandSpace, told Chinese state television. "That final braking maneuver was executed beautifully, achieving a soft landing and realizing our original design goal of a 'one-shot reverse-parking' maneuver while moving at high speed. "Our team will immediately begin inspecting the recovered first-stage booster," Dai said. "We will collect status data and perform maintenance and overhauls. Once that work is complete, we will put the booster back into service for another flight as soon as possible." The Zhuque-3's basic design can place a payload of more than 17,600 pounds (8 metric tons) into low-Earth orbit after accounting for the fuel reserves required for booster recovery. LandSpace eventually plans to debut an upgraded Zhuque-3 carrying more propellant and using more powerful engines, raising its payload capacity to more than 40,000 pounds (18.3 metric tons) in reusable mode or a few tons more with an expendable booster. The Zhuque-3 builds on LandSpace's earlier work on a smaller rocket named the Zhuque-2, which became the world's first methane-fueled launcher to reach orbit in 2023. Second mover. China's rocket companies still have some work to do to demonstrate booster turnaround and reuse. The Long March 10B booster recovered last month is supposed to fly again before the end of the year, according to CASC. LandSpace did not immediately say when it might reuse the Zhuque-3 booster, but the company previously said it plans to fly each booster at least 20 times. With the benefits of reuse, LandSpace says its medium-lift rocket will be optimized for deploying Chinese satellite mega-constellations, such as those for broadband connectivity. Chinese officials project the country's two largest constellations, Guowang and Qianfan, will require 700 to 800 rocket launches over the next seven to 10 years. Several more Chinese rockets with reusable boosters could fly in the next few months. Next in line might be the second flight and landing attempt of the Long March 12A. Others include the Long March 12B backed by the Chinese government, the Pallas-1 from Galactic Energy, the Hyperbola-3 from iSpace, and Space Pioneer's Tianlong-3, which failed on its first test launch earlier this year. It would not be surprising if one or more of these Chinese rockets launch and land before one of the next crop of American rockets does so. The US rocket industry has long been dominant in the two most important metrics: number of orbital launches and payload mass to orbit. This is almost entirely thanks to the growth of SpaceX and its pioneering reusable Falcon 9 rocket. For the past few years, Falcon 9s have flown an average of three times per week, usually on fully loaded missions to deliver more capacity to SpaceX's Starlink Internet network. But SpaceX is looking to wind down the Falcon 9 rocket soon and could stop offering the workhorse launch vehicle to commercial customers after 2028. The replacement is Starship, a massive rocket with at least five times the payload capacity of the Falcon 9. It is designed for full reuse to support a more rapid launch cadence than the Falcon 9, which has likely already had its busiest year. Starship remains experimental, with many milestones to go before it can fully replace the Falcon 9. Starship also has a history of delays, so further schedule slips may cause SpaceX to reconsider the retirement of its workhorse. China is working on a Starship-like rocket called the Long March 9, but it won't fly until sometime after 2030. The payload envelope for Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket falls in between Falcon 9 and Starship. New Glenn appeared poised for a breakout year after the first reflight of a recovered first-stage booster, but the rocket is now grounded after an explosion on the launch pad in Florida in May. The other major US launch provider, United Launch Alliance, has no near-term plans for a reusable architecture. Nobody else is close, either. This all leaves companies like Rocket Lab, Stoke, Relativity, and others with a potential opening in the market for their medium- to heavy-class rockets once Falcon 9 is off the stage. China, meanwhile, has a bench that is arguably just as deep as the US launch industry. None of China's space companies - even the colossal state-owned CASC - can come close to matching SpaceX's rapid-fire launch schedule. Collectively, they only launch about half as often as SpaceX. But that is with a fleet of entirely expendable rockets. China's foray into the realm of reusable rockets could change that. Stephen Clark is a space reporter at Ars Technica, covering private space companies and the world's space agencies. Stephen writes about the nexus of technology, science, policy, and business on and off the planet.

Pentagon missile buildup changing the factory floor. Startups are bringing software, robotics and manufacturing methods developed around commercial space into a defense industry under pressure to produce weapons faster HUNTSVILLE, Ala. - The Pentagon's push to replenish missile inventories is creating an opening for a new class of manufacturers that say the problem isn't simply a shortage of factory space. It is how those factories are built. Startups such as Machina, Hadrian and Freeform are applying software, robotics and highly automated production techniques to aerospace and defense manufacturing, challenging a model that has long relied on dedicated machinery, specialized tooling and skilled labor to make relatively small numbers of complex parts. Some of the new manufacturing technology grew out of the commercial space industry. At this year's Space and Missile Defense Symposium, Los Angeles-based Machina is displaying a 16-foot fuselage for a hypersonic vehicle that it manufactured for Ursa Major, a company that is expanding from rocket propulsion into complete hypersonic missile systems. Machina co-founder and chief executive Edward Mehr, who previously worked at SpaceX and Relativity Space, says the hardware is an example of how AI can be applied not to designing weapons, but to controlling the machines that manufacture them. "Missile programs are not constrained by design. They are constrained by production," Mehr told SpaceNews. Machina recently received a qualification contract from Lockheed Martin supporting the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile, or JASSM, a long-range cruise missile built for the Air Force. The agreement is significant for Machina because it puts an assembly made with the company's manufacturing process through qualification for an operational missile program. Lockheed is also an investor in Machina through Lockheed Martin Ventures. Mehr said manufacturing fuselage structures for hypersonic missiles has become "a big area of growth for us." Machina's manufacturing platform, called RoboCraftsman, uses robotic arms to progressively shape sheets of metal into aerospace structures. The company uses artificial intelligence to give robotic equipment more autonomy over how it performs a physical task. "Our use of AI and robotics allows us to build flexible manufacturing systems that can switch between processes and geometries while reducing the need for dedicated tooling," Mehr said. Mehr said traditional programs can require tens of millions of dollars in dedicated equipment and long setup periods before the first production hardware is available for testing. Machina's argument is that a programmable factory can compress that transition because much of the change resides in software rather than in a new set of dies and machinery. Equipment previously producing automotive hardware, for example, could be reprogrammed to begin making a missile structure after receiving the digital design, he said. "Under the traditional model, a significant design change or a new missile component can require another investment in tooling, equipment and production setup," Mehr said. "With our system, much of that change can happen through software rather than by building another dedicated manufacturing line." Machina is looking to demonstrate that its approach can consistently meet the tolerances, quality requirements and production rates demanded by major weapons programs. The company is preparing to scale. Machina raised $124 million earlier this year to help finance a new 200,000-square-foot U.S. factory intended to move the technology from lower-volume work into larger production runs. Its customers also include NASA and Toyota.

Orlando tech connect | august 12, 2026. Aug 12, 2026 By Sheena Fowler SVP, Innovation & Economic Development This issue highlights advanced packaging in Osceola, optics and photonics research at UCF, military training demand in Research Park, cybersecurity companies scaling in Orlando and Seminole County, and aerospace momentum next door on the Space Coast. This region has unusual proximity across several layers that usually sit in separate markets. In one cycle, three serious checks cleared inside Central Florida: IonQ's SkyWater deal includes the advanced-packaging and silicon-interposer line at NeoCity in Osceola County, Spur Intelligence in Lake Mary received a $200 million investment from Insight Partners, and Orlando's ThreatLocker raised $190 million from Elephant and Koch Disruptive Technologies. Next door on the Space Coast, Relativity chose Brevard for a new Terran R factory, worked by the EDC of Florida's Space Coast. The point is not that Central Florida has already figured it all out. If it had, this would be a different conversation. The point is that there is real value under the surface: advanced packaging in Osceola, optics and photonics research at UCF, military training demand in Research Park, cybersecurity companies scaling in Orlando and Seminole County, and aerospace momentum next door on the Space Coast. The work now is to connect the ecosystem better, recruit the gaps, and make sure the engineers, founders, investors, and business leaders who need each other can actually find each other. That is how this becomes more than a set of strong assets. That is how it becomes a stronger economy. The money showed up. The honest tell in this work is not who announces a plan. It is who spends. This cycle three checks cleared inside the region. IonQ paid $1.8 billion for SkyWater and, with it, the advanced-packaging and silicon-interposer line at NeoCity in Osceola County, part of a Trusted Foundry cleared to do defense-sensitive work on U.S. soil. ThreatLocker, which started in Orlando and stayed, raised $190 million from Elephant and Koch Disruptive Technologies while protecting more than 70,000 organizations. And Spur Intelligence, out of Lake Mary, pulled $200 million from Insight Partners for software that flags internet traffic pretending to be something it is not. A semiconductor company, a cybersecurity firm, and a fraud-detection startup do not share a trade show, let alone an industry. What they share is proximity across several layers that usually sit in separate markets: hardware, networks, security, and defense-sensitive demand. A fourth deal, Relativity's new Terran R factory, landed next door on the Space Coast, worked by Brevard's own EDC, and it strengthens the corridor we all sit in. The buyers came to Orlando. In June, the people who buy military training flew to Orlando and told the local industry what they need. That was TSIS 2026, and the Team Orlando write-ups have been rolling out over the past few weeks. The Navy, Marine Corps, Army, and Air Force all presented procurement and modernization plans in the open. NAWCTSD, the Navy command that has specified and bought the fleet's training and simulation systems out of Central Florida for six decades, set its priorities from here. The Marine Corps' PM TRASYS walked through how it is rewiring acquisition to take mature commercial technology faster, which is the polite version of fewer custom builds and more things that already work. And CPE ST3, the Army command up the road, spent the cycle merging two product offices and opening a prize challenge to pull its digital engineering into the present. These commands do not build the systems. They define what gets built and write the contracts, and industry answers. The advantage is proximity. The officer who signs the requirement, the office that awards it, and the companies that deliver are close enough for the same local market to understand the problem before the rest of the country reads the solicitation. The hardware underneath. The hardware story here should be told carefully. NeoCity does not print wafers, and we should not imply it does. SkyWater's Florida site specializes in advanced packaging and silicon interposers, the work of integrating and wiring chips into smaller, faster devices. imec's center at NeoCity works on RF technology for radar and sensing. The IonQ deal puts that Kissimmee line inside one of the most closely watched hardware roadmaps in the country. Thirty minutes north, UCF's CREOL, the College of Optics and Photonics, does the research behind the other half: lasers, imaging, optical communications, and photonics. This cycle, CREOL faculty and alumni showed up in the news through SPIE Fellow recognition, a Florida Inventors Hall of Fame induction, and new research on partially coherent light for optical communications. This is where the ecosystem value starts to show up. Advanced packaging, optics and photonics research, radar and sensing, and military training demand do not automatically become one market. But they sit close enough that the region can connect them deliberately. That is where the work is. Autonomy that ships. Autonomy is useful only when it leaves the slide deck and survives contact with a customer. ThreatLocker and Spur are applying AI and intelligence products to security and fraud detection at scale. Unusual Machines is building NDAA-compliant drone parts in Orlando rather than trusting a supply chain it does not control. The aerospace side of this story sits mostly next door, and that is still relevant. Relativity is scaling rocket manufacturing on the Space Coast, and Space Florida, the state's aerospace agency headquartered in Brevard, signed its first agreement under Florida's International Aerospace Innovation Fund, an MOU with the UK Space Agency. Our counties and Brevard are not the same region, but they draw from overlapping engineering talent and many of the same defense and aerospace customers. The point is not to claim the ecosystem is finished. If it were, this would be a different conversation. The point is that there is real value under the surface, and the next phase is about connection: matching technical assets to customers, recruiting the gaps, and making the market easier for engineers, founders, investors, and business leaders to navigate. The work still ahead. Capital has always been the hard part here. Central Florida has not lacked talent, technical assets, or useful problems to solve. What has often been missing is the outside capital and national attention that help those assets scale. That is why this cycle matters. The checks into ThreatLocker, Spur Intelligence, and the SkyWater asset at NeoCity do not solve the capital gap by themselves, but they do show that serious investors are paying attention. The next step is to keep making the work visible, accurately and repeatedly, so the region is judged by what is being built here, not by the old story people think they already know. The region has unusual proximity across several layers that usually sit in separate markets. The opportunity now is to turn proximity into connection. That means helping engineers find the right customers, helping founders find capital that understands the market, helping companies recruit what is missing, and helping business leaders see where the value is before someone else packages it for them.