Electrical Systems Engineer

SWISSto12 is one of the world’s fastest-growing aerospace companies, evolving from its pioneering use of 3D printing technologies for high-performance Radio Frequency (RF) products and applications to recently announcing the manufacture of entire geostationary telecom satellites, called HummingSat, that define a new category in space.
HummingSat is the world’s first commercial telecom GEO SmallSat developed in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA). Its uniquely compact size combined with highly capable telecom payloads allows telecommunications operators to deploy a cost-efficient, compact, and agile asset without sacrificing performance or security. HummingSat has been selected by Intelsat to build the I-45 satellite, by Inmarsat to build three I-8 satellites, and recently by Astrum Mobile to build the NEASTAR-1 satellite.
SWISSto12 is also a leading provider of Radio-Frequency (RF) products and sub-systems for satellite communication and remote sensing applications. The company’s patented 3D printing technologies and associated product designs are unique to deliver lightweight, compact, highly performing, and competitive RF products.
You join SWISSto12 to contribute to the development of advanced active antenna products, space payloads and electrical subsystems for next-generation satellite missions. In this role, you will be responsible for the architecture, development, verification and qualification of electrical subsystems associated with active antennas and space payload equipment. This includes power conversion and distribution, telemetry and telecommand functions, EMC/EMI compliance, radiation considerations, electronics architecture definition, supplier technical management, and full lifecycle development of flight electronics.

Responsibilities

• Responsible for the electrical subsystems of payload and active antenna products, including: power supply and power distribution, telemetry and telecommand management, digital control functions, EMC/EMI compliance, electrical interfaces with RF units and spacecraft, and harness architecture and grounding concepts
• Lead or contribute to design and of power supply units and power distribution architectures for active antenna systems in LEO, MEO and GEO, including: array antenna topologies, beamforming architectures, SSPAs or LNAs, platform electrical interfaces, thermal and mechanical constraints
• Design and define telemetry, monitoring, health reporting, command and configuration architectures for distributed RF subsystems
• Perform electrical architecture trade-offs balancing: performance, cost, mass, power consumption, reliability, manufacturability
• Lead or contribute to the development and maintenance of: electrical budgets, power budgets, Harness budgets
• Interface definitions
• Lead or contribute to the full development lifecycle of electronic flight equipment, including: requirements definition, requirements flow-down, architecture definition, design and development, verification, validation and qualification.
• Perform requirement decomposition from system and unit level down to: module leve, functional level, and circuit level.
• Ensure compliance of the electrical units with: electrical requirements, EMC requirements, radiation requirements, environmental requirements, platform interface requirements, Product Assurance requirements
• Design, specify and validate: DC/DC converters, power conditioning circuits, power distribution units, protection circuits, digital control circuits, etc
• Lead or participate in electrical analyses and simulations including: SPICE modelling (or similar), worst-case analysis (WCA), FMEA/FMECA, Part Stress Analysis (PSA), efficiency analysis, stability analysis, thermal analysis, derating analysis, Total Ionizing Dose (TID), Single Event Effects (SEE), Single Event Latch-up (SEL), Radiation shielding assessments
• Support electrical integration and functional verification activities, including EMC and environmental testing
• Contribute, define and/or review EEE parts selection and qualification strategies.

Requirements

• Master's Degree or PhD in Electrical Engineering, Electronics Engineering or Power Electronics
• Experience with spacecraft, payload or active antenna power subsystems, preferably for 5 years or more (power conversion, power distribution, schemes).
• Experience with typical Space development lifecycle of electronic equipment from requirements definition to qualification and delivery.
• Background in power electronics and/or EMC, particularly for space or high-reliability applications.
• Proven experience with: DC/DC converters, power supplies, power distribution units, power conditioning, battery interfaces, protection circuits, switching electronics
• Experience with spacecraft platforms bus standards and interface requirements
• Experience with space payload power harness engineering and manufacturing.
• Proven experience generating and maintaining a power budgets for space mission
• projects.
• Experience performing or reviewing: Worst Case Analysis (WCA), FMEA/FMECA, Reliability Analysis, Part Stress Analysis (PSA), Radiation Analysis
• Experience with EEE parts selection and derating
• Knowledge of: ECSS-E-ST-20, ECSS-E-ST-20-20, ECSS-E-ST-10, ECSS-Q-ST-30-11, ECSS-Q-ST-60, ECSS-Q-ST-60-15, MIL-STD-461, MIL-STD-704, DO-160
• Tools: LTSpice, PSpice or equivalent, MATLAB., Python, Altium Designer or equivalent ECAD tools, requirements management tools.
• Experience with Design for Testing, including optimization of flight units and ground support equipment.
• Experience with Design for Manufacturing (DfM) of electronic units.
• Experience reviewing schematics, PCB layouts, electrical budgets, power budgets, test procedures and design justification files.
• Language: fluent English

Benefits

Further details to be shared by our recruitment team.
More about SWISSto12:
SWISSto12 has successfully established contracts with Intelsat, Inmarsat, Astrum Mobile and ESA for HummingSat as well as contracts for their RF product line in Europe, and the US with prominent partners and customers such as Thales, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, SES and the ESA. SWISSto12 is a spin off from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), is privately owned and backed by prominent Swiss and European Investors. SWISSto12 is headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland, and operates a US and European-subsidiariesy in Foster City California. The company is well funded for its near and mid-term developments and backed by a solid customer revenue stream.