Also called: Mission Director
Leads Mission Control during human spaceflights and has the final word on every decision.
You sit at the center console with a dozen flight controllers reporting to you on headsets. When an alarm goes off on the space station, everyone waits for your 'go' or 'no-go'. Only a few dozen people in history have held this job at NASA.
Federal senior pay or commercial equivalent.
Approximate: anchored on Bureau of Labor Statistics data for a broader job group.
Bachelor's degree (4-year), about 4 years after high school. Bachelor's in engineering or science plus about a decade as a flight controller.
Ways in: 4-year college, On-the-job training. Training cost: $15k – $60k.
Majors to look at: Aerospace Engineering, Physics, Mechanical Engineering.
Growing about average. Small field not tracked separately by BLS; grows with mission count.
Low risk for 10 years. AI watches spacecraft systems and suggests fixes; leading Mission Control and owning life-or-death decisions stay human.
Classes: AP Physics, AP Calculus, Speech or debate, Computer science.
Official data: O*NET occupation 11-9041.
Career Universe is an early version. Pay, training and AI-risk figures are estimates to start your own research, not verified facts. The research was written with AI research assistants, checked by validation scripts and spot-checked by hand. Check anything important with schools, employers and official sources. How the numbers work.