Also called: Missile Warning/Space Surveillance Operator
Runs the huge radars that track satellites and debris, often for the Space Force.
You sit at a radar console at a remote site like Alaska or North Dakota, watching tracks of objects and reporting new ones.
Military pay or contractor pay.
Approximate: anchored on Bureau of Labor Statistics data for a broader job group.
High school diploma, about 0 years after high school. Military enlistment and training; civilian contractor roles also exist.
Ways in: Military, On-the-job training. Training cost: Get paid while you train.
Majors to look at: Space Operations (military).
Growing about average. Small, fast-growing field as low Earth orbit gets crowded; not tracked separately by BLS.
Medium risk for 10 years. Radar networks run more automatically, so fewer operators; watching for odd events and fixing gear remain.
Classes: Electronics CTE, Computer science, Physics, JROTC.
Official data: O*NET occupation 55-3019.
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.