Flight Safety Analyst

APT Research is hiring a Flight Safety Analyst for the SMAS III contract, supporting the Safety & Mission Assurance Office at Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) within the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). This role involves flight safety analysis for both guided and unguided launch vehicles, coordinating and maintaining technological processes to ensure safety from program definition through launch and operations.

APT is an employee-owned engineering services company specializing in safety and quality analyses for the U.S. Government. We offer competitive salaries, advancement opportunities aligned with professional development interests, and excellent benefits, including recognition as a best place for working parents. As employee-owners, we share a commitment to delivering innovative solutions that exceed expectations.

Responsibilities

• Identify flight hazards and develop controls to mitigate risks in aerospace or aeronautical vehicle tests or operations.
• Perform risk studies and prepare risk analysis and flight safety plans, defining safety limits, risk factors, and mission rules for missions, projects, or programs.
• Analyze mission objectives to ensure compliance with Agency and GSFC/WFF Range Flight Safety criteria; advise range users on risk factors.
• Adapt analysis methods to meet unique assignment requirements.
• Conduct conceptual definition studies and complex detailed analysis for advanced systems on proposed projects with no precedents, collaborating with senior analysts.
• Perform theoretical and aerodynamic studies to evaluate factors affecting flight safety, such as performance, stability, and trajectory.
• Conduct casualty expectation and protected area impact probability studies.
• Calculate flight safety limits for Orbital guided launch vehicles.
• Analyze post-flight data to confirm or deduce violations of limits or variations in predicted performance.
• Evaluate Failure Modes and Effects and Fault Tree Analysis.
• Integrate study and analysis results into comprehensive technical briefings and reports for review panels and senior management to ensure mission risks are understood.

Requirements

• Education: High school diploma required; Bachelor’s degree in engineering or mathematics preferred.
• Experience: Minimum of five years in both Orbital and Sub-Orbital vehicle risk analysis.
• Excellent oral communication, technical writing, and mathematics skills.
• Must be a U.S. citizen able to qualify for an unescorted badge and pass a background investigation and drug test.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience developing software code and programs.
• Proficiency with Trajectory Analysis Optimization software (TAOS) and MATLAB.
• Experience with Range Safety Risk Analysis Tools and other flight risk analysis software.
• Prior work with government ranges (e.g., NASA Wallops Island, Eastern Range, Western Range).

Schedule

• Full-time position, 40+ hours per week, including periodic extended shifts, weekends, holidays, and shift changes (1st, 2nd, or 3rd shift as required).
• Work in excess of 40 hours per week (comp time or overtime, when approved) will be frequently required.
• May require domestic travel.

Work Environment

• Work in non-environmentally controlled areas.
• Occasional work at heights (with fall protection) and in confined spaces.
• Extended periods of standing, stooping, and bending.
• Ability to climb stairs and lift objects over 15 lbs.

Other Essential Functions

• Ability to work independently with minimal supervision, make rational decisions, and exercise good judgment.
• Work attire must be appropriate for the position and must not impose a safety risk to the employee or others.