Job Description

Date Posted: 2025-07-31
Country: United Kingdom
Location: GBRBKM112: UK Space Operations Centre, UK Space Operations Centre (UK SpOC), Naphill, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, HP14 4UE, United Kingdom
Position Role Type: Unspecified
Orbital Analyst
Space Command, RAF High Wycombe
Permanent, Fulltime 37hrs
Raytheon UK
At Raytheon UK, we take immense pride in being a leader in defence and aerospace technology. As an employer, we are dedicated to fuelling innovation, nurturing talent, and fostering a culture of excellence.
Joining our team means being part of an organisation that shapes the future of national security whilst investing in your growth and personal development. We provide a collaborative environment, abundant opportunities for professional development, and a profound sense of purpose in what we do. Together, we are not just advancing technology; we're building a community committed to safeguarding a safer and more connected world.
About the role:
The Raytheon NORSS team, are looking for an Orbital Analyst to work within its operational Orbital Analyst team, performing Space Situational Awareness (SSA) and Space Domain Awareness (SDA) duties, to support the safety of civil and commercial satellite operations. Working with both national and international government stakeholders, the Orbital Analyst will be responsible for monitoring UK-licenced objects and critical spacecraft, and providing timely technical analysis and outputs to support the decision making of key stakeholders.
This role sits within Raytheon UK's Space & Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) mission area and will report to the Raytheon NORSS Orbital Analyst Operations Lead.
This role involves working at an operational Orbital Analyst centre where day to day duties include but are not limited to; ensuring the safety of UK-licenced and critical spacecraft involved in high-interest events by monitoring, evaluating, and reporting on key space events (such as re-entering objects, collision avoidance activities and fragmentations of objects). This role will also provide the opportunity to develop new astrodynamics software capabilities and analytical tools in support of UK led Space Surveillance and Tracking (SST) programmes.
An understanding of astrodynamics and SSA/SST/SDA topics will be required for this role, and the successful candidate will be expected to have programming experience.
This role can either be based from RAF High Wycombe or home with the ability to commute to RAF High Wycombe. Additionally, the successful candidate will occasionally need to travel across the UK to support business and customer needs.
Responsibilities
As our Orbital Analyst, you will lead and provide technical expertise on Customer programmes, internal Research and Development projects, and contribute to the capture of future opportunities by means of bid-writing and architecting technical solutions in the realm of SDA. You will be expected to lead and coordinate the development of SDA/SSA tools and capabilities and ensure the implementation of operational processes, procedures and systems. The successful candidate will lead on defining the technical and security requirements, along with the performance standards necessary to integrate new SDA sensors into the current UK network.
You will be expected to support customers and partner organisations with technical advice related to the continuing evolution of commercial and government SDA capabilities including infrastructure, software and human assets. This role will present the opportunity to support a variety of customers in the UK space industry and wider organisations in technical engagement with global partners and institutions in respect to SDA.
Required Skills and Experience

• Relevant professional experience in the space industry focused on Space Surveillance and Tracking (SST), Space Situational Awareness (SSA) and/or space systems with an understanding of Space Weather, SSA and SST modelling and analysis.
• Understanding of software development lifecycles, workflow procedures and architectures to design, develop, test and validate bespoke SSA tools for both internal and external projects.
• Excellent communication skills (written and oral), to articulate and communicate technical detail clearly and concisely with colleagues, customers and partner organisations at all levels. Able to prepare detailed reports and present where necessary.
• A strong commercial background in the space industry with tender and bid-writing experience.
• Able to work effectively and with initiative both independently and as part of a team in a way that is collaborative and adaptable.
• Broad understanding and experience in data analysis and analytical software utilisation.
• Experience in the development of automated scripts and/or simple software products.
• Effective time management and capable of managing multiple work streams.
• Willing and eligible to hold SC security clearance and obtain DV clearance if required.
• A bachelor's degree in a relevant field (physics, mathematics, engineering or science).

Desirable Skills and Experience

• Extensive experience in working in the SDA/SSA/SST space domain and expertise in conducting collision avoidance analysis, orbit determination, fragmentation and re-entry analysis in an operational setting.
• Demonstrable technical expertise in the technical capability and tasking of sensors providing data to support operational collision avoidance, orbit determination, fragmentation and re-entry analysis across all orbital regimes. Expertise should include demonstrable experience of radar, optical and laser ranging systems.
• Technical understanding of the end-to-end chain of ground-based and space-based SST sensor development.
• Confident in providing technical demonstrations of capabilities to both internal and external parties.
• Capable of leading a team effectively and professionally to deliver results.
• A strong understanding of celestial mechanics, astrodynamics and atmospheric physics.
• Skilled in one or more of the following programming languages: Fortran, C/C++, Java, Matlab, Python, SQL, Java-script. Experienced in the development and utilisation of SST/SSA related computer simulations.

Benefits and Work Culture
Benefits

• Competitive salaries.
• 25 days holiday + statutory public holidays, plus opportunity to buy and sell up to 5 days (37hr)
• Contributory Pension Scheme (up to 10.5% company contribution)
• Company bonus scheme (discretionary).
• 6 times salary 'Life Assurance' with pension.
• Flexible Benefits scheme with extensive salary sacrifice schemes, including Health Cashplan, Dental, and Cycle to Work amongst others.
• Enhanced sick pay.
• Enhanced family friendly policies including enhanced maternity, paternity & shared parental leave.

Work Culture

• 37hr working week, although hours may vary depending on role, job requirement or site-specific arrangements.
• Early 1.30pm finish Friday, start your weekend early!
• Remote, hybrid and site based working opportunities, dependant on your needs and the requirements of the role.
• A grownup flexible working culture that is output, not time spent at desk, focussed. More formal flexible working arrangements can also be requested and assessed subject to the role. Please enquire or highlight any request to our Talent Acquisition team to explore the flexible working possibilities.
• Up to 5 paid days volunteering each year.

RTX
Raytheon UK is a landed company and part of the wider RTX organisation. Headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, USA, but with over 180,000 employees globally across every continent, RTX provides advanced systems and services for commercial, military and government customers worldwide and comprises three industry-leading businesses - Collins Aerospace Systems, Pratt & Whitney, and Raytheon.
Supporting over 35,000 jobs across 13 UK sites, RTX is helping to drive prosperity. Each year our work contributes over 2.7bn to the UK economy and offers a wealth of opportunities to 4,000 suppliers across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. We're investing in all corners of the country, supporting 29,040 jobs in England, 3,040 in Northern Ireland, 1,900 in Scotland and 1,600 in Wales.
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RTX adheres to the principles of equal employment. All qualified applications will be given careful consideration without regard to ethnicity, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation or identity, national origin, age, disability, protected veteran status or any other characteristic protected by law.
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