Mission Operations & Ground Segment Manager

AscendArc•Remote or Hybrid, OR

14h•$195,000 - $250,000

About The Position

Come join us in shaping the future! Get in on the ground floor as the first member of our Mission Operations & Ground Segment team, working on a revolutionary satellite communications system. Build the control center, build the team, then fly the spacecraft. AscendArc is a venture-backed startup founded to revolutionize the satellite communications industry. We are looking for doers who want to work in a ground-breaking and fast-paced environment. Our success will depend on your energy, skill, and creativity.

Requirements

B.S. or M.S. in Aerospace Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science or a related discipline; 10+ years in satellite ground segment and/or mission operations
Demonstrated ownership of a ground segment architecture, including the satellite control center (SCC) and flight dynamics system (FDS)
Experience procuring and then managing ground software suppliers through development, acceptance and sustainment — not only selecting a product
Experience delivering a ground system to an external customer as a contract deliverable — installation, site acceptance, documentation, operator training and warranty transfer
Comfortable working back-to-back between a customer contract and a supplier contract, and holding both sides to what was agreed
Hands-on experience adapting a commercial SCC or FDS product to a specific spacecraft, including mission database and telemetry/command dictionary build
Experience directing in-house software development as the technical customer — setting requirements and priorities, reviewing design, and accepting releases against them
Judgment on where to buy, where to adapt and where to build ground software, and the evidence to defend it
Experience standing up a mission control center or a major ground system from scratch — not only operating one that already exists
Experience running or supporting LEOP and in-orbit test, and staffing a control center through a critical phase
Experience integrating with commercial or government ground station networks worldwide
Experience building and training an operations team, including procedure development, certification and rehearsal
Supervisory experience: hiring, setting objectives and developing engineers
Able to lead a customer-facing design review and hold technical authority in front of an operator customer
Working knowledge of command and telemetry link security and key management

Nice To Haves

GEO communications satellites
electric orbit raising
multi-spacecraft or multi-mission operations
handover of spacecraft to a customer operations team
CCSDS and ECSS standards

Responsibilities

Own the ground segment architecture end to end: satellite control center (SCC), flight dynamics system (FDS), mission planning, mission database, data archive, networks and security
Stand up the Mission Control Center from nothing — facility, consoles, servers, networks, redundancy and a backup control capability — and take it through readiness for flight
Establish ground station connectivity with commercial and government providers worldwide, and own the technical interfaces and service agreements behind it
Own space link security: encryption, authentication and key management for command and telemetry
Design the ground segment for a fleet rather than a single spacecraft — common tooling, reuse across programs, and the ability to support concurrent missions
Set the make/buy line for ground software — what we procure, what we adapt and what we develop in house — and defend those choices
Own the SCC and FDS procurement end to end: requirements and statements of work, RFI and RFP, technical evaluation, negotiation support and contract technical content
Flow the customer’s ground segment requirements back-to-back into supplier specifications and contracts, so what we buy satisfies what we owe — including deliverables, documentation, licensing, warranty and support terms
Manage the ground software suppliers through development as the technical counterpart — design reviews, progress and risk tracking, change control, and resolution of interface issues
Own adaptation and configuration of procured products to our spacecraft: mission database, telemetry and command dictionaries, displays, automation, flight dynamics models and orbit determination configuration
Act as the technical customer for ground software developed in-house: own the requirements, the priorities and the development plan, review the design, and accept each release against what you asked for
Hold in-house software to the same standard as a procured product — verification, documentation, configuration control and quality — because it ships to the customer under the same contract
Own factory and site acceptance testing and formal acceptance of every delivery, bought or built
Own licensing, maintenance, version upgrades and obsolescence across procured and in-house software, both for our own use and for what transfers to the customer
Own delivery of the SCC and FDS to the customer as a contract deliverable: installation and commissioning at their control center, site acceptance testing, and formal customer acceptance
Own the ground segment documentation set the contract requires — interface control documents, user and operations manuals, mission database, as-built configuration and verification evidence
Train and certify the customer’s operations team, and support them through the transition to routine operations
Own transfer of licenses, warranty and supplier maintenance arrangements to the customer at handover, and define what support we continue to provide afterwards
Work with our export control officer to confirm that ground software deliverables, supplier arrangements and technical data transfers are authorized for an international customer
Own the interface to the customer’s ground segment, and lead the Ground Segment Design Review and ground segment acceptance reviews with them
Represent mission operations and the ground segment at program milestones and customer reviews as the subject matter expert
Work within the Systems Engineering baseline for requirements, interfaces and technical budgets, and flow ground segment requirements to the spacecraft
Develop the operations concept, flight operations procedures, flight rules and contingency plans with the spacecraft subsystem leads
Validate procedures and the mission database against the flatsat and closed-loop simulator rather than on paper
Own LEOP, electric orbit raising and in-orbit test operations planning, and staff the Mission Control Center through execution
Own anomaly response during operations: investigation, recovery, reporting and the changes that follow
Recruit, build and train the flight operations team — certification, rostering, rehearsals and operational readiness reviews
Supervise operations and ground systems engineers, set objectives and develop the team as the fleet grows
Manage subcontracted operations support where we use it, while the architecture and technical authority stay with you