What are the responsibilities and job description for the NASA GFE Safety Engineer position at Qualified Technical Services, Inc?
Work Location: Houston, TX - NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) - Hybrid
Minimum Citizenship: U.S. Citizen or Permanent Resident
Clearance: US Government (Public Trust)
JOB DESCRIPTION: NASA GFE Safety Engineer
The Government Furnished Equipment (GFE) Safety Engineer provides Safety and Mission Assurance (S&MA) support to the Quality and Flight Equipment Division (NT) at NASA’s Johnson Space Center for GFE projects developed by NASA for NASA programs. The current scope of GFE projects are in support of the International Space Station (ISS) Program, the EVA Office (XX) and EMU spacewalk activities, the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) Orion Program, test missions associated with MPCV, and advanced NASA projects associated with the future space exploration efforts (e.g., Gateway, HALO, and HLS).
Roles and Responsibilities:
- Assure overall design/safety requirements robustness of individual GFE projects, to assure adequacy of the overall safety assessment (Hazard Reports and FMEA/CILs), and to provide engineering expertise toward the certification efforts that qualify mission functionality.
- Assist the project with anomaly resolution and to communicate any associated project risks up through the appropriate S&MA chain of command.
- Provide project support over the entire system lifecycle, including design, assembly, pre-mission planning, integration, launch, flight operations, and return.
- Contribute to design reviews as the subject matter expert for GFE safety to assure design/safety requirements definition and the selection of appropriate testing/verification methods.
- Utilize risk assessment tools (e.g., Hazard Analysis, FMEA/CILs, Fault Tree Analysis, Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA)) to identify hazards/causes, to ensure adequate controls are in place, and to eliminate/reduce risk as necessary to mitigate overall system effect.
- Formulate the S&MA response to system design and safety products through the integration and coordination of inputs for all necessary NASA stakeholders (e.g., Engineering, Space and Life Sciences, Program Offices, Flight Operations, etc.) associated with the project and its lifecycle.
- Review Testing and Verification Plans to assess adequacy of control strategies and assures that compliance with qualification verifications and the GFE certification process has been met.
- Provide presentations throughout a GFE project lifecycle to S&MA, project, and program management as necessary regarding safety, risk summaries, and dissenting opinions.
- Provide support toward on-orbit anomaly investigation and resolution efforts. This may involve the provision of fault trees and historical failure data pertaining to the GFE project/system.
REQUIREMENTS: NASA GFE Safety Engineer
Education: Bachelors of Science in Engineering (Mechanical or Aerospace preferred)
Year(s) of Experience: 5 years of experience working with NASA flight hardware or operations
Minimum Citizenship: U.S. Citizen or Permanent Resident
Required Skills and Traits:
- Superb written and oral communications skills for frequent correspondence with project stakeholders and multiple layers of customer management
- Excellent people skills required along with demonstrated excellent professional behavior interfacing with customers and department management.
- Understanding of JSC processes and requirements for the design, engineering, production and test activities of Government Furnished Equipment (GFE) for utilization supporting human space flight for BOE development as well as the near real time operational support needs.
- Familiarity with the NASA JSC GFE flight hardware life cycle and certification process
- Detailed understanding of the purpose and operation of the various NASA review and approval boards and panels governing the acceptance of GFE hardware and software for human spaceflight application.
- Must be willing to travel (< 5%), including possible international travel. If requested for international travel, then must be able to obtain a personal passport as required
- Must be able to successfully complete a Government Background check to receive a Public Trust clearance
Other Desired Skills:
- Experience with hazard/safety analysis and/or NASA GFE hardware and operations
- Experience in real-time operations monitoring
- Working knowledge of ISS hardware/systems, the operations thereof, and the associated operational environment
- Working knowledge of EVA/EMU hardware/systems, the operations thereof, and the associated operational environment
- Familiar with NASA, DOD or other industry Safety, Reliability, and quality processes
- Familiar with Safety or Reliability related products such as hazard analysis, FMEA/CILs, PRA, and Fault Trees (including prior authoring experience)
- Experience with project management, planning, scheduling, etc.
Qualified Technical Services, Inc. is a HUBZone employer. HUBZone residents are encouraged to apply for preferential consideration without regards to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, marital status, ancestry, physical or mental disability, veteran status, or sexual orientation. You are being given the opportunity to provide EEOC information to help our company comply with Equal Employment Opportunity/Affirmative Action record keeping, reporting, and other legal requirements and such information will not affect hire ability. We expect and require the cooperation of all employees in maintaining a discrimination-free and harassment-free atmosphere.
