The future of aerospace and defense starts here. Ursa Major was founded to revolutionize how America and its allies access and apply high-performance propulsion, from hypersonics to solid rocket motors, satellite maneuvering and launch. We design and deliver propulsion and defense systems that solve the most urgent and critical national security demands.

Location: Galeton & Berthoud, Colorado Ursa Major develops, manufactures, and tests solid rocket motors for modern defense applications, with a focus on building a high-performance test and evaluation enterprise that enables safe, repeatable, and scalable propulsion development. The organization is evolving toward a tightly integrated test infrastructure stack spanning facilities, fluid systems, controls, instrumentation, and data systems. As a Staff Ground Support Engineer, you will serve as the technical authority for the architecture, integration, and lifecycle strategy for ground test infrastructure used in propulsion testing, including static fire stands, fluid-mechanical systems, ground support equipment (GSE), and integrated controls, and data acquisition systems.

You will define and govern system-level design standards, interface architectures, and reliability expectations that scale across multiple test assets and programs. You will serve as a technical leader at active test sites and field locations, responsible not only for hands-on system build, modification, and troubleshooting, but also for providing guidance on complex engineering approaches across teams, resolving cross-domain integration issues, and improving system robustness through structured root cause analysis and design feedback loops. In collaboration with test technicians, propulsion engineers, EHS and operations teams, you will ensure test campaigns are executed safely and repeatably while continuously improving the underlying infrastructure that enables them.

Key Responsibilities

Integrated Test Systems & Infrastructure Ownership Own end-to-end architecture, design, commissioning, and lifecycle sustainment of scalable propulsion test infrastructure supporting multiple solid rocket motor programs across R&D, qualification, and production acceptance phases Lead design and integration of fluid systems (high-pressure gas, pneumatic, hydraulic, and GSE), including system architecture, safety-critical design decisions, and interface control across mechanical, electrical, and controls domains. Define, design and build industrial electrical and controls architecture for propulsion test facilities, including power distribution, grounding/bonding systems, interlock safety, PLC/controls standards, and facility automation. Own instrumentation and data acquisition architecture across test assets, including sensor strategy, signal integrity standards, calibration frameworks, distributed DAQ system design, and data quality assurance pipelines; ensure decision-grade data reliability from field acquisition through control room consumption.

Serve as the technical authority for static fire campaigns, establishing test readiness criteria, integrated system validation strategy, and structuring anomaly resolution to ensure safe operations and high-confidence test outcomes.

Requirements

, energetic material handling standards, and internal test infrastructure policies. Serve as a technical authority on safety analysis for test range operations, including overpressure, fragment hazard analysis, environmental hazard characterization, and derivation of exclusion zones.