Mission Manager (Early Career)

Nanoracks is a cutting-edge aerospace company focusing on providing commercial access to space, currently on the International Space Station (ISS), suborbital vehicles, expendable launch vehicles, and more! We have sent over 1,000 payloads to the Space Station, kickstarted the CubeSat deployment revolution, and have customers in over 30 nations.

Since 2009, Nanoracks has created and expanded new in-space markets and has been the world leader for ushering in a new era of in-space services. Currently, Nanoracks is working to build commercial space stations (“Outposts”) from the spent upper stages of launch vehicles in orbit. This technology will enable spent upper stages to be used as crewed and un-crewed space stations for various purposes and customers—both civil and commercial.

Nanoracks will provide and facilitate an ecosystem of interoperable technologies and distributed free flying space stations. You can read our approach here.

We hope you’ll apply to join our team. We work with leaders from all over the world, including NASA, universities and government centers both foreign and domestic, and commercial companies. We’re fast, fun, passionate, and love sending things to space.

Nanoracks is looking for a Mission Manager who will be focused on the Company’s growing launch service offerings, ranging from small satellites to pressurized and un-pressurized microgravity payloads.

As Mission Manager, you will oversee the launch campaigns of customer payloads from contract signing to in-space operation.

Smart, talented, critical thinkers with an ability to handle responsibility in a dynamic and ever-changing landscape. You will own your projects and be results oriented. NanoRacks is a small company (70+ awesome people), but we interface with much larger organizations from around the world.  You will need to be able to work in small and large groups as well as simultaneously execute an entire project on time.

Description 

• Serve as primary interface to customer payload teams from contract signing to in-space operation.
• Serve as primary interface to launch vehicles and next-level integrators on behalf of the customer throughout the payload integration process.
• Consolidate and communicate customer payload data and requirements to various internal functions including project management, engineering, operations, safety, and quality assurance.
• Maintain and author customer facing documentation and templates necessary for efficient data collection and requirement verification.
• Support customer payload fit-checks, hardware testing, and integration activities in the field.
• Develop and manage launch campaign and payload-specific schedules and budgets.
• Manage and maintain customer contracts once signed through execution.
• Review customer provided payload data and verify compliance of all technical and programmatic requirements levied by Nanoracks, the launch vehicle provider, ISS Program, or other governing bodies.
• Support internal engineering team as necessary to facilitate launch of customer payloads, including defining requirements for R&D projects, developing budgets, providing schedule milestones, etc.
• Support business development & sales teams, including brokering of technical reviews, completing feasibility assessments, contributing to proposal efforts, drafting statements of work, assisting in contract formulation and milestone development, etc.

Basic Qualifications:

• 0-2 years professional work experience in the aerospace industry.
• US Citizen.
• Bachelor’s degree or higher in engineering (i.e. mechanical, electrical, aerospace, chemical), hard sciences (i.e. physics, materials science), computer science/engineering, or mathematics from an accredited university.
• Strong oral and written communication skills for both technical and non-technical audiences.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Direct experience working with CubeSats, Small Satellites, or any other platforms or payloads designed for operation in space (design, build, test, analysis, launch, operation, etc.).
• Experience working with government and commercial aerospace customers.
• Familiarity with the aerospace industry, including launch vehicles and/or payload development.
• Ability to understand and/or conduct technical analysis products (structural, thermal, orbital mechanics).
• Understanding of United States export control laws and regulations.
• Understanding of United States spectrum coordination laws and regulations.
• Experience in IT networking and software development (particularly working with Linux-based systems and protocols).

Additional Requirements

The Mission Manager must be willing to travel (up to about 30% of the time) to launch sites, customer facilities, and NASA/government centers, both foreign and domestic in support of engineering activities or customer relations work. Because our schedules are driven by launch dates, this work may fall on weekends or holidays and therefore your schedule must be accordingly flexible.

Competitive with local and industry standard.

To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, applicant must be a U.S. citizen as defined by ITAR (22 CFR §120.15) or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State.

The selected candidate will be required to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA)

Nanoracks, LLC is an equal opportunity employer and our team is comprised of individuals of all backgrounds, with different skills and personalities to bring new ideas and creativity to our teams.