Also called: Mission Flight Control Officer, Range Safety Officer
Watches a rocket launch in real time and decides whether to destroy it if it veers toward populated areas.
At Cape Canaveral or Vandenberg, the range safety officer reviews flight plans for weeks, then during a launch watches tracking displays with a finger near the 'terminate' command. Many rockets now carry automatic systems, so the job increasingly involves certifying them. These roles are held by Space Force officers and contractor engineers.
Mix of Space Force officer RMC and contractor engineer salaries; estimate.
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 aerospace, electrical, or systems engineering; experience in range operations.
Ways in: 4-year college, Military. Training cost: Get paid while you train.
Majors to look at: Aerospace Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Systems Engineering.
Growing faster than average. Launch rates have grown dramatically with commercial rockets, raising demand for range staff.
Medium risk in 5 years, high in 10. Autonomous flight-termination systems now destroy off-course rockets on their own, shrinking this human role.
Classes: AP Physics, AP Calculus, Statistics.
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.