Spring 2027 Mechanical Engineering Internship/Co-op
About the role
General Astronautics was founded on the belief that the bottleneck to humanity's expansion into space is labor, not rockets or science. We build autonomous dexterous robots to close the gap on the science that humanity can't afford not to do. We are building the robots that will make orbital manufacturing routine. This is the unlock to new pharmaceutics, new materials, and new planets.
We are hiring exceptional students for engineering roles in Spring 2027. As an intern, you will work directly with your mentor and the founding team on projects that ship to orbit. You will write code, build hardware, and run experiments that show up on the critical path to our upcoming demo mission.
If you have shown academic strength and a track record of building things outside the classroom, you are a strong candidate.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
Design and Development
- Own a mechanism or subassembly from requirements through hardware. You will run the trade studies and support your work with first principles engineering methods.
- Build and iterate detailed CAD models and mechanical drawing’s, and make real calls on materials, tolerances, and assembly sequence for flight-ready hardware.
- Utilize classical and FEA analysis to ensure safe margin and reliability across all load conditions.
Testing and Validation
- Write and execute the test plans for your own hardware. Build the fixtures, wire the instrumentation, take the data, and figure out what it means.
- Support qualification and acceptance campaigns, including parabolic flight and on-orbit demo hardware.
- Produce the full design package: drawings, analysis reports, BOMs, and assembly documentation good enough for someone else to build from.
Optimization and Integration
- Run cost and manufacturability trades across parallel configurations, and learn to weigh design risk against a schedule that does not move.
