Senior Spacecraft Operations Lead for Mission Control

Rocket Lab; Long Beach (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Rocket Lab is seeking a Principal Spacecraft Operations Engineer I at our Long Beach, CA campus. You will lead mission operations for diverse space missions, develop flight and ground software, and collaborate across design, AIT, and flight software teams to ensure safe, reliable satellite operations.

The role requires a bachelor’s degree in engineering and 12+ years in space mission design or operations, with 5+ years in leadership.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering (software, computer, electrical, aerospace, mechanical or other technical engineering).
• Extensive experience in space mission design, spacecraft subsystems, or spacecraft operations.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the program's mission operations technical lead: set direction, plan work, and act as primary ops contact for design decisions.
• Advocate for operability across the program: influence architecture for safe, efficient, autonomous operations.
• Own mission ops requirements and validate facilities and system functions.
• Define automation strategy and develop robust, software-driven ops methods.
• Design and test flight software sequences and FDIR/telemetry configurations for health and fault management.
• Develop ground software and automation frameworks for scalable operations.
• Maintain mission ops tooling and CI/version control, and manage on-call schedules.
• Create interface specifications, CONOPS, procedures and operational docs.
• Lead validation of flight products against simulators and tests.
• Support AIT teams across spacecraft tests.

Skills

Mission operations

Automation strategy

Flight software

Ground software

CI/CD

Version control

Flight dynamics

Leadership

Education

Bachelor’s degree in engineering

Tools

Scripting

Git

Job description

Rocket Lab is seeking a Principal Spacecraft Operations Engineer I at our Long Beach, CA campus. You will lead mission operations for diverse space missions, develop flight and ground software, and collaborate across design, AIT, and flight software teams to ensure safe, reliable satellite operations.

The role requires a bachelor’s degree in engineering and 12+ years in space mission design or operations, with 5+ years in leadership.