Senior Mechanical Engineer, Lunar

At Vast, our mission is to contribute to a future where billions of people are living and thriving in space. Vast is developing next-generation space stations to ensure a continuous human presence in space for America and its allies, enabling advanced microgravity research and manufacturing, and unlocking a new space economy for government, corporate, and private customers. Using an incremental, hardware-rich and low-cost approach, Vast is rapidly developing its multi-module Haven Station. Haven Demo’s 2025 success made Vast the only operational commercial space station company to fly and operate its own spacecraft. Next, Haven-1 is expected to become the world’s first commercial space station when it launches, followed by additional Haven modules to enable permanent human presence by 2030. Our team is all-in, committed to executing our mission safely and on time. If you want to work with the most talented people on Earth furthering space exploration for humanity, come join us.

Vast is looking for a Senior Mechanical Engineer, Lunar, reporting to the Senior Vice President, Lunar Programs, to support the development of the systems that will be required for Vast’s Lunar ecosystem. Our team is applying the technology, infrastructure, and knowledge built across our Haven Demo, Haven-1, Haven Station, and Vast Satellite programs to a new frontier: the Moon. Our Lunar program isn't starting from scratch, giving this founding team an extraordinary running start to help shape humanity's next era of lunar exploration from day one

As one of the earliest Mechanical Engineers on the Lunar team, you'll play an outsized part in developing Vast’s lunar ecosystem. In this role you will have the opportunity to cover a wide range of components and systems for the Moon. You will concept, design, build, and test engineered systems that require an understanding of mechanical design, power systems, fluid systems, mechanisms, and materials engineering. The ideal candidate will be a full-ownership responsible engineer with broad knowledge that can take a product from beginning to end

This will be a full-time, exempt position located in our Long Beach location

• Own end-to-end lunar engineering projects such as solar and battery power stations, gas and fluids consumables pallets, airlocks, nodes, and habitation modules

• Lead trade studies on lunar designs, interfacing with power, thermal, avionics, life support, and industrial design teams

• Work with lunar subject matter experts and systems architects to bring lunar concepts to reality that mesh with Vast’s larger lunar ecosystem and NASA’s Moon Base architecture

• Develop and maintain CAD models (NX or equivalent), flowing design intent through to fabrication and release

• Drive fabrication, assembly, and integration of hardware, partnering with manufacturing and integration teams on design-for-manufacturing

• Lead hardware bring-up, checkout, and anomaly resolution

• Represent your systems at design reviews and program milestones

• Minimum of a B.S. in aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, materials engineering, mathematics, physics, or related technical discipline

• 6+ years of experience in mechanical design for space applications, with direct ownership of hardware from design through test

• Hands-on CAD proficiency (NX or equivalent) with experience taking mechanical/electromechanical/fluids designs from concept through flight release

• Demonstrated experience owning a hardware subsystem end-to-end (design, build, integration, and test), not solely in an analysis or support