The people in the control rooms who fly spacecraft day and night, from the space station to probes beyond Pluto.
Top pay: highest pay, longest training
Flight Director: Leads Mission Control during human spaceflights and has the final word on every decision. Typical pay $175k.
Flight Controller: Monitors one system of a spacecraft (power, life support, communications) from Mission Control and fixes problems in real time. Typical pay $118k.
CAPCOM (Spacecraft Communicator): The one voice in Mission Control that talks directly to astronauts in space. Typical pay $135k.
Flight Dynamics / Trajectory Engineer: Calculates exactly where a spacecraft is going and plans the engine burns to get it there. Typical pay $130k.
Deep Space Navigator: Steers robotic probes across billions of miles to hit targets like Mars or Saturn's moons. Typical pay $150k.
Simulation Supervisor (SimSup): Designs the nightmare scenarios used to train Mission Control and astronauts, then throws them at the team. Typical pay $128k.
Ground Software Engineer: Writes the software in mission control that sends commands to spacecraft and displays their data. Typical pay $135k.
Mid pay: solid pay, degree or apprenticeship
Mission Operations Engineer: Plans and runs the day-to-day operations of satellites and robotic probes. Typical pay $105k.
Spacecraft Sequencing Engineer: Writes the timed scripts of commands a robotic spacecraft runs on its own when it's too far for real-time control. Typical pay $102k.
ISS Payload Operations Controller: Coordinates the science experiments running on the International Space Station from a control center in Huntsville, Alabama. Typical pay $95k.
Deep Space Network Operator: Runs the giant radio dishes in California, Spain, and Australia that talk to every deep-space probe. Typical pay $72k.
Telemetry Analyst: Watches the data streaming down from spacecraft and spots trends before they become problems. Typical pay $82k.
Control Room Systems Technician: Keeps the computers, voice loops, and screens in a mission control room running. Typical pay $58k.
Starter: fastest way in
Ground Systems Operator: Runs the ground software that sends commands and receives data during satellite passes. Typical pay $54k.
Mission Operations Scheduler: Builds and updates the schedules for ground station passes, shifts, and mission events. Typical pay $48k.
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.