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Rocket Lab is seeking a Senior Spacecraft Operations Engineer II or Principal to lead mission operations for a growing fleet of satellites supporting commercial and government customers. Based at Rocket Lab's Long Beach headquarters, you will ensure the health, safety, and optimal performance of diverse missions including LEO constellations, interplanetary exploration, LEO rendezvous, and Space Development Agency deployments.
You will serve as the program's mission operations technical lead, setting technical direction and strategy while planning and prioritizing operations staff work. Key responsibilities include advocating for operability across the program by influencing spacecraft and ground architecture upstream to ensure vehicles are designed for safe, efficient, and autonomous operation. You will own mission operations requirements, lead requirements validation and verification, and define automation strategies for robust, software-driven mission operations.
The role involves designing, developing, and testing flight software sequences and FDIR/telemetry configurations for spacecraft health and fault management. You will architect and develop ground software for long-duration operations, including scripting and automation frameworks that scale across a growing fleet. You'll establish integration, testing, and maintenance of mission operations tooling and codebases, manage on-call and shift schedules, and author operational design documents including interface specifications, CONOPS, and contingency procedures.
You will lead validation of flight products and procedures using spacecraft simulation tools (flatsat, HITL, SIL, digital twins), support AIT teams across integrated tests, and provide technical interface between New Zealand and USA engineering teams. The position requires representing mission operations in program milestone reviews, design reviews, and readiness gates, driving continuous improvement through post-mission lessons learned.
Rocket Lab builds rockets, spacecraft, and critical subsystems for space missions. The Space Systems team has enabled over 1,700 missions for NASA, the Space Development Agency, and the U.S. Space Force, building spacecraft and components for missions to the Moon and Mars. This role offers unique exposure to vertically integrated space operations across multiple mission types and customer bases.
