Parachute Specialist, Project Engineer

The Aerospace Corporation is the trusted partner to the nation’s space programs, solving the hardest problems and providing unmatched technical expertise. As the operator of a federally funded research and development center (FFRDC), we are broadly engaged across all aspects of space— delivering innovative solutions that span satellite, launch, ground, and cyber systems for defense, civil and commercial customers. When you join our team, you’ll be part of a special collection of problem solvers, thought leaders, and innovators. Join us and take your place in space.

At Aerospace, we are committed to providing an inclusive and diverse workplace for all employees to share in our common passion and aspiration – to carry out a mission much bigger than ourselves.

Building on The Aerospace Corporation's reputation as a trusted, impartial advisor with integrity and dedication to mission success, the Civil Systems Group (CSG) combines deep technical expertise with market-leading innovation to help our customers solve complex systems engineering and integration challenges. CSG is organized by core customer-facing lines of business to manage and grow programs within NASA, NOAA, USGS, and the NNSA, while extending our capabilities to other civilian federal government agencies fully integrated within Aerospace rules, regulations, processes, values and behaviors.

This position is for a Entry, Descent & Landing Parachutes Technical Specialist.  In this role you will support NASA and the Commercial Crew Program’s Parachute Expert in monitoring the design, development, testing, and preflight packing of parachutes associated with NASA and commercial human rated and logistics spacecrafts.

This will be a hybrid position based at Kennedy Space Center, FL.

What You’ll Be Doing

• Serve as a highly proactive technical specialist, understanding issues and formulating options/recommendations, while working closely for the NASA Kennedy Space Center (KSC) Commercial Crew Program (CCP) S&MA Office, and collaborating with the NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) Aeroscience and Flight Mechanics Division, and across other offices, teams, working groups and panels
• Support the assessment of flight dynamics model correlation on the CCP Providers’ parachutes and parachute systems using data from test and analyses.
• Support parachute development in the NASA Commercial Crew Program.  This includes requirements verification, drop test participation and independent post-test analysis, pre-flight packaging verification in plant, and reentry and parachute deployment modeling and post deployment assessment
• If requested, support NASA in the architecture, research, and development of prototype next generation parachute technology. 
• If requested, support NASA in initiating the parachute development and support for Gateway and other exploration/deep-space logistics spacecrafts. 
• Support the overall development and coordinating reachback into Aerospace subject matter experts for flight dynamic predictive models for parachutes
• Develop periodic status reports and presentations
• Develop special reports/discussions of findings, issues, conclusions, recommendations, and risk assessments
• Coordinate requirements, technical objectives, interfaces, standards, issues and findings with subject matter experts and stakeholders

What You Need to be Successful

Minimum Requirements:

• A bachelor’s degree in a technical discipline
• 8 years of increasingly responsible and related engineering/scientific experience
• Knowledge of human space flight preparation for flight technical processes
• Have test experience including execution of test requirements, verification and validation processes, procedure, planning, preparing for Test Readiness Reviews, logistical coordination pre and at test site, and test execution for flight hardware and ground systems.
• Experience working across diverse teams and different engineering disciplines
• Knowledge of space flight certification processes to ensure performance and safety requirements are met
• Developing project management skills
• Ability to work within a team environment, where the team is distributed across multiple agencies, organizations, projects and programs
• Ability to identify and communicate concerns to leadership in a diplomatic manner

How You Can Stand Out

It would be impressive if you have one or more of these:

• Advanced Technical Degree
• 8+ years’ experience with NASA or on NASA commercial systems parachute programs
• Familiarity with: NASA’s Human Space Flight Programs, NASA Commercial Crew Program’s SpaceX Crewed Dragon and Boeing’s CST-100, any of the NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services Program’s logistics modules. 
• Ability to