Spacecraft & Launch Vehicles

Designing, building, and testing the rockets that leave Earth and the spacecraft they carry, including the ones that land and fly again.

Top pay: highest pay, longest training

• Spacecraft Systems Engineer: Makes sure every part of a spacecraft (power, computers, radios, thrusters) works together as one machine. Typical pay $140k.
• Launch Vehicle Engineer: Designs and improves the rockets that carry satellites and people to orbit. Typical pay $135k.
• Spacecraft Guidance, Navigation & Control Engineer: Writes the math that tells a spacecraft where it is, which way it's pointing, and how to fire thrusters to get where it's going. Typical pay $145k.
• Flight Software Engineer: Writes the code that runs on board spacecraft and rockets, where a single bug can lose a billion-dollar mission. Typical pay $133k.
• Spacecraft Thermal Engineer: Keeps spacecraft from frying in sunlight or freezing in shadow, where temperatures swing hundreds of degrees. Typical pay $125k.
• Entry, Descent & Landing (EDL) Engineer: Designs the 'seven minutes of terror' when a spacecraft plunges through an atmosphere and lands on another world or back on Earth. Typical pay $150k.
• Heat Shield / Thermal Protection Engineer: Develops heat shield materials that let capsules survive reentry at temperatures hotter than lava. Typical pay $115k.
• Spacecraft Power Systems Engineer: Designs the solar arrays, batteries, and wiring that keep a spacecraft alive. Typical pay $115k.
• Space Mechanisms Engineer: Designs the hinges, motors, latches, and springs that unfold antennas, solar panels, and robot arms in space. Typical pay $118k.
• Rocket Recovery & Reuse Engineer: Works on bringing rocket boosters and capsules back so they can fly again, from landing legs to refurbishment. Typical pay $128k.
• Space Radiation Effects Engineer: Makes sure computer chips and electronics survive the radiation of space. Typical pay $135k.
• Contamination Control Engineer: Keeps dust, oils and stray molecules off spacecraft, telescope mirrors and Mars samples. Typical pay $120k.
• EEE Parts Engineer: Picks and tests the electronic chips that must survive radiation and decades in space. Typical pay $130k.
• Mission Assurance Engineer: Acts as an independent watchdog making sure a rocket or spacecraft is truly ready to fly. Typical pay $135k.
• Spacecraft Structures Engineer: Designs the frames and panels that hold a spacecraft together through a violent launch. Typical pay $135k.
• Space Nuclear Power Engineer: Designs nuclear batteries and small reactors that power spacecraft and future Moon bases. Typical pay $135k.

Mid pay: solid pay, degree or apprenticeship

• Spacecraft Integration & Test Engineer: Plans and runs the shake, bake, and vacuum tests a spacecraft must survive before launch. Typical pay $108k.
• Launch Vehicle Mechanical Technician: Assembles rockets by hand: plumbing propellant lines, torquing bolts, and installing engines. Typical pay $66k.
• Spacecraft Integration Technician: Assembles satellites and spacecraft inside ultra-clean rooms where a single hair can be a problem. Typical pay $72k.
• Spacecraft Harness Design Engineer: Designs the bundles of wiring that carry power and data through a rocket or satellite. Typical pay $82k.
• Spacecraft Parachute Engineer: Designs the giant parachutes that slow space capsules returning to Earth and landers dropping onto Mars. Typical pay $108k.

Starter: fastest way in

• Space Wire Harness Technician: Builds the bundles of wires that act like a spacecraft's nervous system. Typical pay $48k.
• Aerospace Parts Kitter / Materials Handler: Gathers and tracks the exact parts and tools technicians need for each step of building a rocket or spacecraft. Typical pay $44k.
• Spacecraft Cleanroom Technician: Prepares and maintains the ultra-clean rooms where satellites and Mars hardware are built. Typical pay $52k.
• Spacecraft Thermal Blanket (MLI) Technician: Cuts, layers and sews the shiny gold and silver blankets that wrap satellites to protect them from the extreme heat and cold of space. Typical pay $54k.
• Spacecraft Solar Array Technician: Hand-builds the solar panels that power satellites, bonding fragile cells and welding hair-thin connectors under a microscope. Typical pay $52k.

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.