Mission Security Engineer

Spacecraft represent the most pressing unmet need across the entire aerospace industry. As more launch vehicles come online and the cost to orbit decreases, more companies launching payloads to space continue to emerge.

For the first time in history, this influx of payload companies combined with reduced launch costs has resulted in a massive increase in need for commercial spacecraft platforms, known as satellite buses. These buses hold the payloads of our customers and are flown on launch vehicles.

Apex manufactures these satellite buses at scale using a combination of software, vertical integration, and hardware that is designed for manufacturing. Our spacecraft enable the future of society: ranging from earth observation to communications and more.

We’d love for you to join us on our mission of providing humankind access to the galaxy beyond our planet.

In this position, you will own or contribute tothe authorization posture of two systems: a space vehicle and a classified cloud mission operations environment. You will contribute to cyber engineering and produce RMF authorization documentation, build and sustain authorization packages, own the plan of action and milestones day to day, and run continuous monitoring. This is mission systems work throughout, not traditional enterprise IT security.

We are open to candidates from ISSE, SSE, ISSM, or ISSO backgrounds, and are hiring across levels: from new and recent graduates through senior engineering, officer, and manager experience.

Responsibilities:
May include any or all of the following:

Authorization Ownership

• Build and sustain authorization packages for both boundaries: system description, boundary definition, categorization, control selection and tailoring rationale, implementation statements, assessment coordination, and the residual risk picture carried to the AO.

• Get assessors engaged early on our evidence-generation approach so generated artifacts are trusted before a package depends on them.

• Own the POA&M.

• Maintain the authorization system of record (eMASS or equivalent).

Space Vehicle Segment

• Own the authorization boundary determination for the flight segment and the rationale that survives assessor scrutiny.

• Categorize under CNSSI 1253 and defend overlay selection, treating the Space Platform Overlay as the starting place it is rather than a finished answer — pushing back where our onboard security capability exceeds what the published tailoring assumes.

• Tailor the control baseline with per-control rationale, using Aerospace's Space Segment Cybersecurity Profile (TOR
  - Rev
  
  A) and SPARTA-linked tailoring, including arguing controls back in where our onboard capability exceeds what those baselines assumed.

• Define the type-authorization for the bus and design how each vehicle off the line generates its own conformance evidence so fleet growth does not mean linear growth in assessment labor.

• Derive verifiable security requirements from threat using SPARTA TTPs as the traceability key, owned by the software and mission integration engineers who will build and test against them.

• Translate verification and production artifacts into assessment evidence and tell engineering early when what they produce will not satisfy an assessor.

• Own the continuous monitoring story for a fielded fleet: security audit down linked across contact windows, configuration drift across vehicles, and on-orbit software update as a recurring authorization event.

Classified Cloud Mission Operations Environment

• Define and document the authorization boundary for mission systems in classified cloud (AWS, Azure classified regions, or equivalent), including impact-level scoping and the seam with ground stations and the RF edge.

• Own the control and evidence story for…