At Vast, our mission is to contribute to a future where billions of people are living and thriving in space. Vast is developing next-generation space stations to ensure a continuous human presence in space for America and its allies, enabling advanced microgravity research and manufacturing, and unlocking a new space economy for government, corporate, and private customers. Using an incremental, hardware-rich and low-cost approach, Vast is rapidly developing its multi-module Haven Station. Haven Demo’s 2025 success made Vast the only operational commercial space station company to fly and operate its own spacecraft. Next, Haven-1 is expected to become the world’s first commercial space station when it launches, followed by additional Haven modules to enable permanent human presence by 2030. Our team is all-in, committed to executing our mission safely and on time. If you want to work with the most talented people on Earth furthering space exploration for humanity, come join us.
Vast is looking for a Senior Manager, Certification, reporting to the Vice President of Mission Management, to support the development of the systems that will be required for the design and build of artificial-gravity human-rated space stations.
This person will lead certification strategy implementation for Haven-1 and ensure the program maintains compliance with all certification requirements required for human spaceflight operations.
This will be a full-time, exempt position located in our Long Beach location.
Responsibilities:
- Lead the execution of the Haven-1 certification strategy.
- Manage certification engineers responsible for requirement verification and compliance tracking.
- Coordinate with systems engineering to ensure certification requirements are properly allocated and verified.
- Develop certification artifacts including:
- Compliance matrices
- Verification plans
- Certification data packages
- Support program milestone reviews including FRR and certification reviews.
- Work with internal stakeholders across engineering, safety, mission operations, and test teams.
- Work with external stakeholders including customers and space agencies
- Escalate certification risks and develop resolution strategies.
- Support certification strategy development for future Haven Station modules.
Minimum Qualifications:
- Bachelor’s degree in engineering or related field.
- 8+ years aerospace engineering experience.
- Experience with spacecraft verification, certification, or mission assurance.
Preferred Skills & Experience:
- Experience with NASA standards or commercial human spaceflight programs.
- Experience supporting certification reviews and flight readiness processes.
- Ability to work effectively in a team environment
- Ability to make independent judgments with limited information
- Communication skills for relaying data (verbally and in-writing) between other employees, vendors, and customers
- Comfortable working in a high-stress environment balancing several projects at any given time, and the flexibility to adjust for abrupt changes in strategic direction.
Additional Requirements:
- Ability to travel up to 20% of the time
- Willingness to support critical mission milestones, including evenings/weekends
U.S. EXPORT CONTROL COMPLIANCE STATUS
The person hired will have access to information and items subject to U.S. export controls, and therefore, must either be a “U.S. person” as defined by 22 C.F.R. § 120.62 or otherwise eligible for deemed export licensing. This status includes U.S. citizens, U.S. nationals, lawful permanent residents (green card holders), and asylees and refugees with such status granted, not pending.EQUAL OPPORTUNITY
What We Do
Vast is developing next-generation space stations to ensure continuous human presence in space for America and its allies, enabling advanced microgravity research and manufacturing, and unlocking a new space economy for government, corporate, and private customers. Using an incremental, hardware-rich and low-cost approach, Vast is rapidly developing its multi-module Haven Station. Haven Demo’s 2025 success made Vast the only operational commercial space station company to fly and operate its own spacecraft. Next, Haven-1 is expected to become the world’s first commercial space station when it launches in 2026, followed by additional Haven modules to enable permanent human presence by 2030. With more than 1,000 employees at its Long Beach, California headquarters and over a billion dollars in private capital invested, Vast has built the facilities required to manufacture and operate America’s next space station. The company plans to develop future habitats for the Moon and Mars, dedicated space stations for government partners, and other crewed systems that will unlock the expanding long-term space economy.
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