Mission Manager

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.

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.

Overview:

This Mission Manager will be responsible to provide customer payload data to internal functions, support varies teams as needed, and manage schedules and budgets, customer documentation and contracts, and verification compliance of all technical and programmatic requirements, the launch vehicle provider, ISS Program, or other governing bodies. The goal of this position is to oversee the launch campaign of customer payloads from contract signing to in-space operation.

Essential Duties:

Project Management:

• Serve as primary interface to launch vehicles and next-level integrators on behalf of the customer throughout the payload integration process.
• Maintain and author customer facing documentation and templates necessary for efficient data collection and requirement verification.
• 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 manage verification compliance of all technical and programmatic requirements levied by Nanoracks, the launch vehicle provider, ISS Program, or other governing bodies.
• Responsible to know and understand the United States export control laws and regulations and the spectrum coordination laws and regulations.

Project Team Support:

• Responsible for consolidating and communicating customer payload data and requirements to various internal functions including project management, engineering, operations, safety, and quality assurance.
• Support customer payload fit-checks, hardware testing, and integration activities in the field.
• 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.
• Serve as primary interface to customer payload teams from contract signing to in-space operation, and payload return as relevant to mission objectives.

Additional Responsibilities:

• Responsible for traveling up to 30%, both foreign & domestic, to launch sites, customer facilities, and NASA/Government centers.
• Responsible for working a flexible schedule to support launch & integration operations (to include weekends and/or holidays).
• Other duties as assigned.

Supervisory Responsibilities

• Team Lead – Provide limited supervision to others through motivation, direction, review and feedback of assigned tasks.

Competencies:

Education:

• Bachelor’s degree or higher in mechanical, electrical, aerospace, or chemical engineering, hard sciences physics, materials science, computer science/engineering, or mathematics from an accredited university is required.

Experience:

• 2-3 years’ professional work experience in the aerospace industry is required.
• Experience working with CubeSats, Small Satellites, or any other platforms or payloads designed for operation in space (design, build, test, analysis, launch, operation, etc.) preferred.
• Experience working on biological or chemical processes preferred.
• Experience in basic laboratory principles and techniques preferred.
• Experience working with government and commercial aerospace customers preferred.
• Experience with the aerospace industry, including launch vehicles and/or payload development preferred.
• Experience with or ability to understand and/or conduct technical analysis products with structural, thermal, and orbital mechanics preferred.
• Experience in IT networking and software development, particularly working with Linux-based systems and protocols preferred.

EEO Statement:

It is our policy to select, place, train and promote the most qualified individuals based upon relevant factors such as work quality, attitude and experience so as to provide equal employment opportunity for all employees in compliance with applicable local, state and federal laws and without regard to non-work related factors such as race, color, religion/creed, sex, national origin, age, disability, marital status, veteran stats, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, citizenship, genetic information, or other protected status. When applicable, our policy of non-discrimination applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including but not limited to recruiting, hiring, training, transfer, promotion, placement, lay-off, compensation, termination, reduction in force and benefits.

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 statements contained in this job description are intended to describe the general content and requirements for performance of this job. It is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all job duties, responsibilities, and requirements. This job description is not an employment agreement or contract. Management has the exclusive right to alter the scope of work within the framework of this job description at any time without prior notice.

Competitive with local and industry standard.