Wireless Power Transmission (WPT) Engineer, In-Orbit Demo Mission (m/f/d)

Focus: You will own the RF beaming chain on TerraSpark's first space-to-Earth WPT demonstration mission, planned for launch in 2028. Your job is to make sure the received power on the ground actually agrees with state-of-the-art WPT theory, and to have a good explanation ready if it doesn't. You will work day to day with systems, thermal, structures, solar, and RF electronics colleagues: the sort of people who say "just one more joint to solder" and then look surprised when it's dark outside.

What you'll do:

• Lead the WPT architecture for the demo payload: choose frequency, antenna/array concept, RF power levels, and link targets so that our ground receivers see exactly what your link budget promised.
• Design and simulate the transmit antenna and RF chain to meet in-orbit link budgets, beam pointing, and power density targets at the receiving system, with an unhealthy attention to predictability and repeatability.
• Develop link budgets and power-density maps for the space-to-ground path, including atmospheric and geometric effects, then have the unusual pleasure of checking if reality has read your analysis.
• Provide clear WPT-driven requirements to the RF Electronics/Software engineer (DC-RF conversion, beam shaping and steering, monitoring) and to Thermal and Structures for how your pride and joy will be bolted on and kept within temperature limits.
• Help define how the ground receiving system will measure what you are transmitting (potentially with external partners), so the experiment compares measurements to your models rather than to wishful thinking.
• Lead or support prototyping and lab tests for sub-scale and flight-like WPT hardware, using real measurement data to beat your link model into something that will survive contact with orbit.

What you bring:

• Degree in Electrical/RF/Microwave Engineering, Applied Physics, or similar, plus several years of hands-on experience in WPT hardware development, or in satcom/radar RF work that you are now keen to repurpose for space-to-ground power beaming.
• Serious antenna and array design and EM simulation skills (e.g. CST or similar), and the ability to turn pretty field plots into mission-specific designs tied to real link budgets and pointing constraints.
• Experience with RF power devices and front-ends (GaN/GaAs SSPAs, combiners, matching networks), relevant simulation tools (e.g. ADS), and a pragmatic sense of how non-ideal behaviour and thermal limits conspire against your elegant link analysis.
• Confidence in planning and running RF measurements (VNAs, spectrum analysers, power meters, field probes) and using the resulting data to calibrate and occasionally humble your propagation models.
• A hands-on, getting-stuff-done, mildly obsessed mindset: you enjoy working closely with systems, thermal, structures, solar, and RF electronics colleagues, and you are strangely motivated by being one of the people responsible for making a ground-breaking space demo work exactly as advertised.