In the mid-1980s, he designed the look of animated computer displays for the USS Enterprise-A bridge in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.

[1] This led to a staff position on Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1987 as a scenic artist, adding detail to set designs and props.

To The Next Generation he contributed the GUI of the fictional LCARS computer system used throughout the USS Enterprise-D and other Starfleet starships.

For example, Okuda created the Heisenberg compensator as a way to explain how Star Trek's fictional transporter might work, despite the limitation of the uncertainty principle.

"[5] Mike and Denise Okuda served as consultants on the project to upgrade Star Trek: The Next Generation to high definition.

The event, and the preparation for it, is included in the History Channel documentary film Star Trek: Beyond the Final Frontier.

His work for Project Constellation, subsequently cancelled, included logos for the Ares booster, the Altair lunar lander, and the Orion spacecraft, designed to carry astronauts to the International Space Station and to return humans to the Moon.

[11] Okuda also worked on the Netflix series Space Force, the Clint Eastwood film Richard Jewell, Mark Altman's Pandora, and as a technical advisor on Ronald D. Moore's For All Mankind.