THE WHY
To end COPV failure in spaceflight. Every structural design decision at Blackwave rests on material data — and that data is only as good as the test campaign behind it. This role builds our materials database for safety-critical structural components: auditable, reproducible, and directly usable for design and qualification. No trustworthy data, no trustworthy hardware.
THE WHAT
You own material test campaigns end-to-end — from test planning, specimen matrices, and rig design through mechanical, thermal, and physical characterization to validated, reviewed datasets in our central materials database. You challenge test methods on their actual informative value, not just their formal correctness.
You ensure:
- every dataset entering the materials database is reviewed, reproducible, and traceable from specimen to report
- no result leaves the lab without explicit uncertainty ranges and validity limits
- design and R&T requirements demonstrably shape the test matrix — not the other way around
You don't produce data points. You build the data foundation our hardware flies on.
Your tasks in detail and by priority:
- Run material test campaigns end-to-end: Plan, prepare, and execute mechanical and thermal test campaigns — from test plan and specimen preparation to execution and a validated, internally reviewed dataset in the materials database. → High Performance: A complete campaign, from plan to database, with zero data gaps.
- Integrate design and R&T into test planning: Bring structural design and simulation requirements into the test matrix and run joint review workshops per campaign. Your data answers questions the design teams actually have. → Togetherness: The test matrix is built with the teams who use the data.
- Report uncertainties without exception: Measurement uncertainty, specimen geometry deviations, and method limitations are stated proactively in every test report — even when it makes results harder to accept. → Candor: Every result comes with its uncertainty range and validity limits. Always.
- Maintain full traceability: Every campaign is fully logged — specimen IDs, test parameters, raw data, evaluation scripts, release status. The chain from specimen to report holds up under audit. → Accountability: Traceable from sample to signature. No open entries.
- Improve the methods themselves: Question and upgrade existing test methods and evaluation routines — automated data evaluation, new specimen geometries, DIC-based strain measurement — and present the improvement to the team. → Playfulness: The method is not sacred. Better is better.