Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF), located in Kauai, HI, is the world's largest instrumented test range, and aims to provide a safe environment for live-fire testing of long-range missiles, ballistic missile targets, missile defense systems, and hypersonic weapons. The flight safety office at PMRF has the responsibility to analyze worst-case hazards, failure modes and effects of these systems, develop flight safety boundaries for test events, compute probabilistic risk to the general public and mission participants, determine hazard areas for public notification, and support safe execution of live-fire test events.
The Flight Safety Analyst in this role will be embedded with government personnel throughout this analytically and computationally intensive process. The successful candidate will be able to independently manage workload, validate results, integrate various studies into comprehensive analysis, and articulate key takeaways to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
Key Responsibilities- Work with vehicle provider to produce flight safety data requirements & delivery timelines
- Work with PMRF government personnel to analyze Monte-Carlo trajectory data sets and determine worst-case performance metrics
- Develop worst-case turn trajectory models for tactical missiles and live targets; implement models on DoD high performance computing systems to produce worst-case turn data sets
- Determine failure probabilities and end vehicle effects for weapons systems and targets
- Develop & validate mission rules (e.g., geographic boundaries, performance limits, failure thresholds) to bound off-nominal vehicle maneuvers prior to live-fire events
- Assess and propagate vehicle breakup debris, including both ballistic and lifting aerodynamic fragments
- Compute probabilistic mission risk in accordance with Range Commander's Council (RCC) and PMRF installation standards
- Produce virtual training scenarios for government Missile Flight Safety Officers (MFSOs)
- Act as Assistant Missile Flight Safety Officer (MFSO) on console during flight tests
Qualifications- Candidate must be a US Citizen and be able to obtain (and maintain) a Secret Clearance
- Bachelor's Degree in Aerospace Engineering (or similar STEM discipline) is required
- Proficiency with probability and statistics, data processing and data analysis using standard software (Python, MATLAB, etc.) on large data sets
Preferred Qualifications- Proficiency with trajectory analysis using Trajectory Analysis and Optimization Software (TAOS) or similar
- Proficiency with Linux environment, including shell commands and shell scripting
- Proficiency running CFD applications on high-performance computing clusters, including job submission and resource optimization
- Familiarity with RCC standards 321 and 319
- Familiarity with automated flight safety systems, including use of Core Autonomous Safety Software (CASS)
