Range Safety & Flight Termination Engineer (MDA)

Mission Driven Research • Huntsville, AL

1d

About The Position

MDR is seeking a highly skilled Range Safety & Flight Termination Engineer to support the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) Targets and Countermeasures Engineering Directorate. In this role, you will provide critical engineering expertise for the flight terminations systems (FTS) used across launch and reentry vehicles.

Requirements

• Demonstrated background in flight termination systems and ordnance systems.
• Master's degree with 12+ years of experience, or a Bachelor's degree with 20+ years of experience, supporting missile defense or large-scale, complex DoD programs.
• Active DoD Secret clearance
• Proficient in flight safety analysis products, specifically RCC-319 (Flight Termination Commonality Standard) and RCC-324 (Range Safety Tracking Systems Commonality Standard).
• Working knowledge of range tracking architectures, including GPS, Inertial Measurement Units (IMU), and C-band tracking
• Strong written and verbal briefing skills; willingness and ability to travel for mission deployments.

Nice To Haves

• Direct experience with Autonomous Flight Termination Systems (AFTS)
• Hands-on flight test operations experience.
• Technical background in RF systems, antennas, batteries, and ordnance devices.
• 10 + years of experience in defense and aerospace.

Responsibilities

• Serve as Range Safety expert on behalf of the Targets Program office during flight tests, Range Safety Working Groups, and flight termination testing.
• Provide oversight of requirements development, allocation and verification for target system FTS products, including autonomous flight termination systems.
• Conduct technical surveillance across FTS hardware and software development, qualification, acceptance, integration, and final checkout.
• Author technical reports detailing system status, analytical findings, and formal recommendations.
• Represent government stakeholder interests in technical working groups, customer forums, and formal design reviews.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Principal