Senior Combustion Scientist / Engineer

About Manastu

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: [email protected]

Role Objective

Build and own the complete combustion model for Manastu's green monopropellant and bipropellant thrusters, from combustion fundamentals and catalyst-surface kinetics, through reactor networks, to CFD and transients such as cold start, pulse mode and instability. The model will be validated against our own hot-fire data and will predict the performance of any new thruster design (Isp, c*, chamber pressure and temperature, light-off time and pulse response) before hardware is built.

Role Overview

This is a combustion scientist / engineer role in Manastu's Propulsion Department. You will take thruster combustion from first principles (mass, species and energy balances, flame dynamics and time-scale reasoning) to a validated, multi-level model. You will develop and reduce reaction mechanisms and write the code behind the model, characterise the propellant for combustion and protected handling (including flash point, flammability limits and minimum ignition energy), and close the loop between model and hot-fire testing with stated uncertainty.

Full-time, based in Navi Mumbai.

Your models and designs will go directly into the green thrusters Manastu builds for orbital transfer vehicles (OTVs), launch vehicle upper stages, satellites and other in-space platforms, from attitude-control thrusters to higher-thrust engines. This is an opportunity to develop novel thrusters, taking them from first principles through design and hot-fire to flight.

Combustion modelling sits at the centre of how we design green propulsion. A model that is trusted against test lets us predict performance before hardware is built, size new thrusters with confidence, and move faster from design to flight. You will set the standard for combustion analysis at Manastu and build the team that carries it forward.

You will work closely with the metallurgy, chemical, manufacturing and AIT (assembly, integration and test) teams, as well as injector design, thermal, CFD and test colleagues:



on materials for chamber and catalyst bed hardware, propellant chemistry and catalyst inputs, manufacturability of combustion hardware, and integration and hot-fire testing.

Key Responsibilities

- Break down thruster requirements (thrust, Isp, total impulse, minimum impulse bit, response time, duty cycle, life) into combustion requirements such as bed loading, residence time, chamber pressure and L*, light-off time and stability margin, each traced to the requirement it comes from.
- Own the complete fidelity ladder of the thruster combustion model, choosing the fidelity each question needs: 0-D equilibrium performance and reactor networks, 1-D and 2-D models with gas and catalyst-surface kinetics and liquid injection into the bed, 3-D CFD where it is needed, and transients such as cold start, pulse mode and instability.
- Design novel thrusters from the model: size the combustion chamber and catalyst bed for specific applications, take the design through review and release for build, and validate it by hot-fire against its requirements.
- Predict what matters: Isp, c*, chamber pressure and temperature, bed pressure drop, light-off time, pulse response and catalyst degradation, each with a stated uncertainty.
- Close the loop with test: compare predictions against hot-fire data, recalibrate after every campaign, fix the physics where tuning is not enough, and help design tests that answer the model's open questions.
- Make the model work across new thruster designs, and document it so that others can run it independently.
- Develop and reduce reaction mechanisms for our propellant, and write and maintain the analysis code behind the model.
- Characterise the propellant for combustion and safe handling, and turn the results into model inputs and handling limits.
- Build and grow the combustion team: hire, mentor, and set the standard for combustion analysis.
- Work closely with the metallurgy, chemical, manufacturing and AIT teams, and with injector design, thermal, CFD and test colleagues.

Experience & Background

PhD in combustion, propulsion or a related field, with 5–10 years of experience.

Required, in priority order:

- Combustion fundamentals and flame dynamics: mass, species and energy balances for a chamber and catalyst bed, and time-scale reasoning (residence versus reaction time,



heat release versus heat loss) to explain light-off, complete decomposition, flame holding and pressure oscillation.
- Thruster combustion model architecture: multi-level combustion models built from equilibrium to reactor networks to CFD, including transients and surface kinetics.
- Test-to-model feedback and uncertainty: models recalibrated against test data, predictions quoted with uncertainty bands, and the judgement to change the physics rather than the coefficients.
- Kinetics and code development: reaction mechanisms developed or reduced in Cantera, Chemkin or similar; own code in Python or C++ under version control; CFD (Fluent, STAR-CCM+, CONVERGE or OpenFOAM) at practitioner depth.
- Propellant and fire-safety characterisation: viscosity, vapour pressure, flash point, fire point and autoignition temperature, plus flammability limits, minimum ignition energy, flame speed and quenching distance, well enough to set safe handling and test limits.

Good to have

- Experience with green monopropellants or high-concentration hydrogen peroxide.
- Bipropellant combustion experience, including mixing and mixture-ratio effects.
- Catalyst bed loading, preheat characterisation and degradation experience.
- Combustion instability or acoustics analysis.
- Additive manufacturing of combustion hardware (SLM, DMLS).

Ideal Candidate Profile

- First-principles thinker: goes to the governing physics and names the assumptions.
- Team builder and mentor: has hired and grown people, can say how each of them turned out, and writes things down so the work does not depend on one person.
- Detail-oriented: checks units, inputs and convergence before any number is used, cross-checks models against hand calculations, states the uncertainty on every result, and keeps records that let anyone rerun the work.
- Clear communicator: presents complex combustion results simply, with their uncertainty, to design reviews, customers and non-specialists.
- Systems thinker: sees how a combustion decision lands on injector, thermal, materials, manufacturing, AIT and test.

What Success Looks Like in this role

- Thruster requirements broken down into combustion requirements, each traced to the requirement it comes from.
- A working combustion model for monopropellant and bipropellant thrusters, used at whatever fidelity each question needs, with its error against hot-fire data published and falling.
- A novel thruster designed from the model, through design review and release for build, then validated by hot-fire against its requirements.
- A combustion team hired and grown that runs the model independently.

📌 Senior Combustion Scientist / Engineer (Navi Mumbai)
🏢 Manastu Space
📍 Navi Mumbai