Thermal Engineering Intern
About the role
Internship role on Dispatch’s Thermal team focusing on spacecraft thermal analysis, hardware, and testing to keep Spark-1 and its payloads within temperature limits through on-orbit operations, deorbit, and atmospheric entry.
Responsibilities
- Own or contribute to thermal analysis of the spacecraft bus, payload deck, and deployables across on-orbit, deorbit, and reentry cases
- Build and maintain thermal models in Thermal Desktop, FEMAP/Simcenter, or custom tools and correlate them to test data
- Size heaters, radiators, thermal straps, and insulation, and define heater control zones and setpoints
- Analyze cryocooler and high power payload thermal chains, including parasitic loads and conductive paths to radiators
- Plan and support thermal vacuum and thermal balance testing, including sensor placement, test procedures, and data reduction
Qualifications
- Currently pursuing a BS, MS, or PhD in mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering, or a related technical field
- Experience through coursework, research, internships, or engineering project teams in heat transfer, spacecraft thermal control, thermal analysis, or thermal testing
- Familiarity with thermal analysis tools such as Thermal Desktop, FEMAP/Simcenter, ANSYS, or scripted models in Python or MATLAB
- Comfortable predicting a temperature by analysis, measuring it in test, and reconciling the two
Skills
Benefits
- N/A
About Dispatch
Satellites for manufacturing in space
Dispatch is building refurbishable reentry vehicles that host and return payloads for companies making ultra-high-value materials (semiconductors, biotech, and pharma) that can only be manufactured in space. Right now, these companies have no practical way to manufacture and get their products back to Earth. We solve this bottleneck. We just returned from the Mojave Desert testing our first full-scale reentry heat shield designed to protect the satellite as it returns from space at Mach 20+, built in an apartment for 100x cheaper than competitors. To test, we held it behind a rocket engine to simulate the forces of atmospheric reentry. IT WORKED! Watch here - https://youtu.be/dhlQmnIoptg To scale, we anchor permanent infrastructure in orbit - building high power Autonomous Space Stations designed from day one for "lights-out" manufacturing serviced by the reentry vehicles.
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