Location: Arcadia, CA (on-site) - beautiful 1000 sq ft warehouse near Pasadena

Stage: Pre-seed startup | Backed by leading early-stage investors including Techstars and Hallstone Ventures

ORBES believes in a world where robots automate the most dangerous and expensive tasks in space. We are starting by building free-flying robots to increase safety and save $100M of manual labor in space stations, building on the legacy of projects like Astrobee, Int-Ball, AERCam, R5-S5, and Seeker/Kenobi.

For the past few months, we have been building CineORB, a 12-propeller 6-DOF camera drone able to film in zero-gravity planes and inside space stations. Our goal is to demonstrate camera recording and mobility on an in-house air-bearing table by the end of the year.

We’re looking for a Controls Engineer to start immediately full-time to get us through a milestone test by Thanksgiving with the intent to convert to full-time employment. We have the core controls architecture in place and are looking for a hands-on problem solver to get us over the finish line.

If you’ve worked on robotics or drone college design teams, Ingenuity, Astrobee, SPHERES, CoSTAR, or formation-flying and docking testbeds, you’ll feel right at home here.

What You’ll Do:

• Develop and simulate 6-DOF dynamics and control systems for free-flying robots operating in and outside the space station.

  • Current product: CineORB - 12 bi-directional propeller drone with cinema camera payload for inside space stations or zero-gravity planes.

  • Future products:
    ORB Dock - home-base for the ORB to recharge and offload data
    SentinelORB - drone with large FOV visual, thermal cameras and air-quality sensing payload
    ExoORB - 6U RPO-capable cubesat using cold gas thrusters for outside space stations and large spacecraft
    
    

• Design and tune attitude and translational controllers (PID, LQR, model-based, adaptive, or other advanced control methods).
  
  

• Integrate state estimation (SLAM) with control loops.
  
  

• Interface across avionics, propulsion, and test to validate control performance with both simulation and hands-on testing.
  
  

• Contribute to the development of safety, redundancy, and fault-tolerant architectures for human-rated operation in space.
  
  

What We’re Looking For:

• Demonstrated leadership on projects in controls engineering for drones and/or aerospace robotics (including a technical degree in related field like Computer Science)
  
  

• Strong foundations in linear and nonlinear control, orbital dynamics, actuator control (DC motors, servos, stepper motors, BLDCs with ESCs).
  
  

• Experience with MATLAB/Simulink, C++/Python, and real-time control implementation.
  
  

• Hands-on experience with robotic or spacecraft GNC systems (e.g., free-flyers, drones, or CubeSats).
  
  

• A love for building and testing real flying hardware (an oscilloscope is your best friend).
  
  

• Familiarity with VIO/SLAM, ROS 2, Jetson/Raspberry Pi, Rpi Cameras, Intel Realsense, and flight test integration.

  • Experience with multi-threaded processing on single board computers.
    
    

Why ORBES:

• See your work fly to the ISS and private space stations!
  
  

• Work with a nimble multi-disciplinary team that values the intersection of art and technology.
  
  

• Work with advisors including IMAX professionals, Hollywood filmmakers, and astronauts.
  
  

• Have a foundational role in enabling safety and efficiency for human spaceflight.
  
  

• Start risk-free as a contractor (full-time, no part-time) till the end of the year with opportunity for full-time employment with generous equity benefits starting in January.

If you’ve got what it takes to help make this a reality, we’d love to hear from you!

Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/company/orbesspace

Contact Anna Shaposhnik via email at anna@orbes.space with your resume and a paragraph intro.