The opportunity
SpaceX was founded under the belief that a future where humanity is out exploring the stars is fundamentally more exciting than one where we are not. Today SpaceX is actively developing the technologies to make this possible, with the ultimate goal of enabling human life on Mars.
What you'll do
Serve as Launch Weather Officer (LWO) for orbital launch,: return-to-launch-site, re-entry, recovery, and test operations—owning weather workflows from forecast, balloon, and sensor data through countdown, launch commit criteria, contingency response, and post-flight data review
Develop new decision-support forecast tools, integrate probabilistic forecast: information into operator tools, and train operators and end-users of forecasts
Improve launch availability by developing new weather tools, improving launch: commit criteria, and coordination with SpaceX launch operations and the external weather stakeholders that support launch and re-entry operations
Lead projects on weather-sensor architecture, numerical weather prediction: tools, launch commit criteria, including NASA LLCCs, and marine/recovery weather
Generate rocket launch, landing, and recovery forecasts against vehicle: constraints, NASA Lightning Launch Commit Criteria (NASA-STD-4010), and 14 CFR Part 450 weather requirements
Conduct numerical weather prediction analysis and testing; interpret model: guidance (NBM, GFS, RRFS, CMC, ECMWF, GraphCast, HAFS, and other AI and ensemble variants) against measured conditions and communicate results to launch/flight control, pad operations, recovery, and leadership
What they're looking for
- Drive requirements, procurement, calibration, installation, quality control,: and operational use of mesonets, electric-field mills, radar, weather balloons, and related instrumentation
- Integrate the weather sensor suite and gridded model data into automation,: dashboards, and decision-support tools
- Collaborate closely with peers, operators, Range, Recovery, Flight Safety,: and external stakeholders to ensure reliable launch-weather support and drive initiatives that support Starship launch-rate growth
- Support Dragon undock, re-entry, and splashdown weather, and marine forecasts: for Atlantic, Gulf, and Pacific recovery and vessel operations
