Automation and Controls Engineering at Impulse Space
I joined Impulse Space in October 2025 as employee number 314. Impulse Space (often advertised as a space logistics company) builds highly maneuverable space craft designed for high delta-v, and long lifetime spacecraft missions. Essentially, the core hypothesis is that getting to space is mostly solved (by SpaceX). The next challenge is providing means of getting to where you actually want to be in space quickly and economically. Traditionally, if you want to get to LEO (Low Earth Orbit) or GEO (Geostationary Earth Orbit), you either pay a ton of money to SpaceX (if they even accept your mission), or you use propulsion methods on your spacecraft that take many months to get to your desired location in orbit. We build two main vehicles currently, Mira and Helios, designed to get your payload (cube sats, cameras, science experiments, etc) to specific orbits in a matter of days, not months.
As an automation and controls engineer, I have been mostly tasked with aiding the test team and increasingly the manufacturing team of Impulse. With test, I was tasked with characterizing Revel and Beckhoff compatability; Revel being a protocol agnostic, high throughput hardware testing SCADA used extensively at Impulse. I was also tasked with overseeing installation of our network data frames at our upgraded test site in Mojave, California. This involved coordinating and aligning electricians, facilities engineers and network engineers to achieve the shared goal of spinning up this site quickly and safely in anticipation of our Helios vehicle testing campaign. I have also owned the design and reviews of a safety retrofit for one of our filament winding machines. This has involved full Hazard Risk Analysis, diving into ANSI machine safety standards, part selection, light curtain safety distance calculations, safety system control logic design, and even a little bit of custom front panel design in NX. We are currently working with the vendors to get this retrofit spun up in anticipation of the relocation of the machine in our new b
More recently I have been heavily involved in upgrading the resistive heating ovens used for curing polymer and resin based parts. For one of our large oven (80kW of resistance heating), I have owned nearly all stages of this project, from collecting requirements from stakeholders, holding design review meetings, beginning to end electrical cad (ePlan) 2D and 3D drawings, regulatory compliance and coordinating technicians. This has required extensive understanding of NEC 70, NFPA 79 and NFPA 86. In particular, these projects have required an in-depth understanding of the physical process of curing, as many materials offgas significant amounts of explosive and flammable gases during curing. I have owned design and verification of our hydrogen exhaust systems, from P&ID drawings to part selection and build.
Impulse has taught me a completely different side to controls, namely electrical design and regulatory compliance. While I dablled with ePlan at SLAC, through my time at Impulse, I have become quite confident at designing a control panel from the 480VAC facilities hookups all the way down to the 24VDC IO device level. It has also (through the extensive ex-SpaceX presence at Impulse) taught me how to approach full ownership (Responsible Engineer mindset) of a project. Be it understanding the requirements of the asset instead of just the asks of the stakeholders, deleting requirements when possible, or communicating schedules and timelines.