ispace is seeking a highly motivated and talented Senior Systems Engineer to join the System Design Group under the Global Design directorate, responsible for the design and development of lunar landers and other transportation and/or communication/navigation platforms.
The ideal candidate will have in-depth experience (i.e. design, implementation, integration, V&V and operations) on at least one spacecraft subsystem, good technical knowledge of multiple spacecraft subsystems and experience in the system engineering disciplines for spacecraft design.
This is a unique opportunity to join a truly fascinating project, the first stage of ispace’s plans to perform resource prospecting on the moon. In this position, you will be assigned to one or more of ispace's projects, and join a small, international team of engineers working towards the detailed design and qualification of our first missions.
Candidates with demonstrated "hands-on" experience in some engineering domains and interdisciplinary experience are preferred. Teamwork is valued, and depending on the strengths of each member of the systems engineering team, the responsibilities listed below will be assigned accordingly.
· Support the definition of a “product baseline”, creating standard requirements, system architecture, ICDs, design and analysis goals, test plans and operations concepts.
· Perform system level trade-offs, coordinating inputs from various disciplines within the team, to evaluate any proposed changes of the design baseline to satisfy the need of each individual mission.
· Take ownership of the technical budgets, such as mass, propellant budget, power, link and data for spacecraft performance.
· Ensure internal interfaces between various spacecraft subsystems are maintained.
· Contribute to requirements management ensuring all requirements are closed-out at the planned project landmarks.
· Contribute to risk assessments during the spacecraft development and support the Project Manager in defining risk mitigation plans
· Support AIT/Flight&Test Operations Groups and subsystem leads in defining test plans and specifications which will successfully verify the spacecraft design.
· Coordinate efforts between relevant subsystems and Operations Team in defining a spacecraft operational concept.
· Contribute to the maintenance of our Model-Based Systems Engineering tools and the integration.
· Bachelor or Masters degree in Mechanical, Electrical, Aerospace Engineering or equivalent
· 3+ years of experience of systems engineering within the space industry under a Model-Based Systems Engineering paradigm.
· 3+ years of experience in any of the following: Structure, Thermal, Avionics, GNC, Propulsion, Communications, Software
· Experience in defining requirements for spacecraft systems
· Experience with programming languages such as Matlab, Python, or equivalent
· Familiarity with spacecraft design and test standards: ECSS, MIL-STD, or similar
· Self-motivated and comfortable making key decisions within a fast-paced environment
· High sense of accountability and ownership
· Excellent presentation skills, both verbally and written. Enthusiastic attitude and team player
· Business level in English
· Requirements management and traceability of requirements until verification
· Experience performing FMECA, reliability analysis, and/or hazard analysis
· Experience with system level testing such as hardware-in-the-loop testing
· Experience with spacecraft operations
· Native/Business level Japanese

ispace, a global lunar resource development company with the vision, “Expand our planet. Expand our future.”, specializes in designing and building lunar landers and rovers. ispace aims to extend the sphere of human life into space and create a sustainable world by providing high-frequency, low-cost transportation services to the Moon. Toward that vision, we aim to build an economic zone between the Earth and the Moon (cislunar) through the commercialization of lunar surface development.
In 2022, we launched our first mission to the Moon. It was the culmination of years of hard work and our first step towards extending human life into outer space. Mission 2, launched in 2025, was the second and final mission of the HAKUTO-R lunar exploration program and featured the RESILIENCE lunar lander carrying the TENACIOUS micro rover, navigating deep space and entering lunar orbit before attempting to land on the Moon. With the completion of the R&D Phase, ispace moves forward, taking the lessons learned from Mission 1 and Mission 2, and transitioning into its “Early Commercialization Phase" with Missions 3 & 4 currently in development.
ispace has business entities in Japan, Luxembourg, and the United States with more than 300 employees worldwide.