Manastu Space
Website:
manastuspace.com
Job details:
MANASTU SPACE
Lead Instrumentation Engineer — Propulsion Testing
Location: Navi Mumbai, India (On-site)
Team: Propulsion Testing / AIT (Assembly, Integration & Test)
Experience: Minimum 5 years (electronics / electrical / instrumentation)
Type: Full-time — includes night and extended shifts during test campaigns
About Manastu Space
Manastu Space is a Space Safety and Logistics company focused on making space safe, sustainable, and accessible. We develop technologies to address critical challenges such as space debris mitigation and green propulsion, enabling safer satellite operations, and long-term sustainability of the space ecosystem.
Our work sits at the intersection of advanced engineering, applied research, and mission-critical systems, requiring deep technical capability and long-term thinking.
Website: https://www.manastuspace.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/manastu-space/
Email: careers@manastuspace.com
The Role
Every firing, every pressure spike, every millisecond of thermal data that proves our thrusters work starts with the instrumentation. As the Lead Instrumentation Engineer in Propulsion Testing, you'll head our instrumentation team and own the sensing, data acquisition, and measurement backbone of our propulsion test facility — building it up alongside the AIT team and standing at the console when the thrusters fire.
This is a hands-on, high-ownership role at the heart of our test operations. You'll work shoulder-to-shoulder with space domain veterans who've spent careers building and firing propulsion systems — a rare chance to learn flight-grade test discipline directly from the people who wrote the playbook. Test windows don't always fall in business hours — hot-fire and qualification campaigns often run late, and you'll be there through them, making sure every channel captures clean, reliable data when it counts.
What You'll Do
- Lead and build the instrumentation team — setting technical direction, mentoring engineers and technicians, allocating work across test campaigns, and growing the group as the facility scales.
- Design, build, and commission the instrumentation and data acquisition (DAQ) architecture for our propulsion test facility, from sensor selection through signal path to recorded data.
- Coordinate closely with the AIT team and propulsion experts to establish and integrate the test facility — defining measurement requirements, instrumentation layouts, wiring diagrams, and channel lists for hot-fire, cold-flow, and qualification campaigns.
- Set up, operate, and monitor instrumentation during live propulsion test campaigns, including night and off-hours shifts as test windows demand.
- Select, install, and calibrate sensors including pressure transducers, thermocouples, load cells, flow meters, strain gauges, and accelerometers for propulsion and structural test articles.
- Design and implement power and signal cable layouts and instrument grounding schemes that control noise without compromising measurement accuracy during data acquisition.
- Configure signal conditioning, verify calibration, and troubleshoot sensors, wiring, signal paths, and control loops — often under live test conditions.
- Operate and maintain the test facility and its equipment — power supplies, testing and measuring instruments, and automation/feedback-based systems — keeping everything calibrated, safe, and campaign-ready.
- Stand up quick instrumentation set-ups to meet urgent development-test requirements without cutting corners on safety or data quality.
- Ensure every test configuration meets safety standards — critical when working with high-test peroxide propellants and high-pressure systems.
- Own instrumentation documentation: control narratives, functional specs, calibration records, and post-test data validation reports.
- Generate equipment and instrument specifications based on test needs, drive procurement, and maintain essential spares through lean inventory management.
- Forecast future facility requirements and adopt emerging technology to keep our test capability current and competitive.
What You'll Bring
Academic Qualifications
- BE / B.Tech in Electrical and Electronics Engineering, or Instrumentation Engineering, or Electronics Engineering.
Experience & Expertise
- Minimum 5 years of industrial experience in any of the above disciplines, handling a range of power supplies, testing instruments, and measuring instruments; calibration of instruments; and automation involving feedback-based operations.
- Operation and maintenance of test facilities built around the above equipment and instruments.
- Setting up instrumentation facilities to industry standards and safety/environmental protocols — selecting the right range and accuracy of instruments to meet the testing conditions.
- Specialization in power and signal cable layout design and implementation, and in instrument grounding to control noise levels without affecting measurement accuracy during data acquisition.
- Developing system-operation and facility-maintenance documentation.
- Ability to develop quick instrumentation test set-ups to meet urgent development-test requirements.
- Excellent communication skills — concept presentation and demonstration, and guiding technicians to deliver seamless service.
- Organizing teams to meet round-the-clock (24-hour) testing requirements as and when required.
- Generating equipment / instrument specifications based on needs, driving procurement, and maintaining essential spares through lean inventory management.
- Forecasting future requirements and adopting changing technology to keep facilities up to date.
Bonus points for: experience instrumenting propulsion, engine, or structural test rigs; harness fabrication and EMI/EMC awareness; exposure to aerospace quality standards (AS9100); or hands-on time supporting hot-fire or qualification test campaigns.
Why Join Us
- Learn directly from Space propulsion veterans — flight-proven expertise you can't get from a textbook.
- Sit at the console for live thruster firings and own the data that decides whether hardware flies.
- Work on flight-proven, DRDO- and ISRO-validated green propulsion technology at one of India's leading space-tech startups.
- Build and lead the instrumentation team from the ground up and shape how testing is done at Manastu.
- Small, elite team where your work has direct, visible impact on hardware that goes to orbit.
- Be part of the story of making space accessible for all humankind.
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