The Office of Commercial Space Transportation has a dual-purpose mission focused on ensuring safety and fostering the growth of the commercial space transportation industry. It achieves this by licensing and regulating commercial space launches and reentries, as well as the operations of launch and reentry sites. Additionally, the office develops public safety standards and requirements to keep pace with the commercial space transportation industry and emerging technologies.
Core Duties and Responsibilities
Safety Analysis & Evaluations: Conduct technical reviews and safety evaluations for commercial space transportation activities, focusing on public safety, system/component reliability, and organizational safety procedures.
Regulatory & Licensing Support: Review contractor work, technical documents, and applications for licenses, permits, or safety approvals. Assist in developing regulatory requirements for new and existing commercial space technologies.
Field Inspections & Compliance: Support safety inspections of commercial launch, reentry, and site operations to ensure compliance with safety, environmental, and regulatory requirements.
Data & Technical Reporting: Collect and analyze operational data, perform trend analyses, conduct engineering testing, and author comprehensive technical and management reports.
Stakeholder Coordination: Assist with the initial interface for government and industry stakeholders, as well as new commercial space transportation applicants requiring licensing.
Key Areas of Expertise Sought
Candidates should possess background experience or transferable skills in one or more of the following areas:
Project Management & Systems Integration: Experience managing or participating in complex, multi-phase space engineering projects through certification, approval, or compliance. Background in systems engineering and integration, ensuring different technical disciplines (software, hardware, safety) align within a single project.
Physics-Based Flight Safety & Hazard Analysis: Experience performing advanced calculations, trajectory modeling, orbital mechanics, aerodynamics, or ballistics. Background or familiarity with Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA), system safety engineering (e.g., MIL-STD-882), software reliability, explosives/blast effects, structural dynamics, or toxic hazard modeling.
Operational Monitoring & Field Inspections: Hands-on operational experience in flight testing, mission control, military flight operations, or aerospace manufacturing floors. Experience with quality assurance, field inspections, compliance monitoring, or conducting/participating in mishap, accident, and anomaly investigations.
