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SpaceX Successfully Completes First Mission to Geostationary Transfer Orbit

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Re: SpaceX Successfully Completes First Mission to Geostationary Transfer Orbit

#51

Post by slackpad »

TallGuyShort wrote: post #46
slackpad wrote: post #13

It's cool to see so many people excited about this launch. Just wanted to remind people that we have a lot of software job openings right now. People are often surprised to learn that SpaceX is hiring web developers - http://www.spacex.com/careers/position/3890 . There are some interesting internal tools projects that are critical parts of each mission. We have embedded developer, PM, and test roles open as well.

I think working on software at SpaceX would be seriously cool, but for unrelated reasons now's not a good time for me to pursue such a dream. I do want to make a move to something like spaceflight eventually - sort of a childhood dream of mine. If I may ask, are there any open-source projects or other technologies you would recommend for someone to work on if they wanted to prepare for such a career a few years from…

I don't think you need to learn Ada! Take a look at our Reddit AMA for some details about what we use - http://www.reddit.com/comments/1853ap. There are a lot of different paths people have taken to get to the software team here, so a strong background with open source on some meaty distributed systems projects in Linux sounds like a good starting point.

Re: SpaceX Successfully Completes First Mission to Geostationary Transfer Orbit

#52

Post by kilroy123 »

slackpad wrote: post #13

It's cool to see so many people excited about this launch. Just wanted to remind people that we have a lot of software job openings right now. People are often surprised to learn that SpaceX is hiring web developers - http://www.spacex.com/careers/position/3890 . There are some interesting internal tools projects that are critical parts of each mission. We have embedded developer, PM, and test roles open as well.

I'd LOVE to work for SpaceX, but I'm not sure I'd want to live in Hawthorne California...

Re: SpaceX Successfully Completes First Mission to Geostationary Transfer Orbit

#53

Post by hga »

rplnt wrote: post #30
InclinedPlane wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They seem to be incredibly open to me. They have been very transparent about pretty much every hiccup and misstep they've had in any flight. I think you are comparing them to an ideal which has never existed in reality.

IIRC they weren't exactly open about losing a satellite in a ISS resupply mission[1]. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_CRS-1#Secondary_payload

I remember them being forthright about it. They also said, and I can believe it, that the 4 days the satellite spent in orbit were very useful to the customer. It was a prototype, and there's a big difference between putting on a shaker table, baking and freezing it, putting it in a vacuum chamber ... and actually putting it in space.

So Orbcomm was able to figure out a lot of stuff and I'm sure the price was very nice.

Re: SpaceX Successfully Completes First Mission to Geostationary Transfer Orbit

#54

Post by lavezza »

dasmoth wrote: post #38
outworlder wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that SpaceX is hiring web developers is not surprising per-se. The fact that it is a 'frontend' position and that page says it's 'avionics' - that is surprising indeed.

I think there might actually be a bit of a scope for some public-side web development that interfaces (indirectly!) with the avionics. Some other launch providers do animations based on vehicle telemetry once the vehicle is out of range. Last night, SpaceX just showed a static image. Given that there's a lot of interest in their webcasts, I imagine they'd like to do better at some point... [Edit: kind-of wonder if th…

I think most other providers feed telemetry into STK (http://www.agi.com/) to get the animations. There really isn't that much effort involved if using STK.

Re: SpaceX Successfully Completes First Mission to Geostationary Transfer Orbit

#56

Post by lavezza »

kilroy123 wrote: post #52
slackpad wrote: post #13

It's cool to see so many people excited about this launch. Just wanted to remind people that we have a lot of software job openings right now. People are often surprised to learn that SpaceX is hiring web developers - http://www.spacex.com/careers/position/3890 . There are some interesting internal tools projects that are critical parts of each mission. We have embedded developer, PM, and test roles open as well.

I'd LOVE to work for SpaceX, but I'm not sure I'd want to live in Hawthorne California...

I don't think a lot of SpaceX employees actually live in Hawthorne. Long Beach, Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, El Segundo, etc.

Re: SpaceX Successfully Completes First Mission to Geostationary Transfer Orbit

#57

Post by [deleted] »

kilroy123 wrote: post #52
slackpad wrote: post #13

It's cool to see so many people excited about this launch. Just wanted to remind people that we have a lot of software job openings right now. People are often surprised to learn that SpaceX is hiring web developers - http://www.spacex.com/careers/position/3890 . There are some interesting internal tools projects that are critical parts of each mission. We have embedded developer, PM, and test roles open as well.

I'd LOVE to work for SpaceX, but I'm not sure I'd want to live in Hawthorne California...

[deleted]

Re: SpaceX Successfully Completes First Mission to Geostationary Transfer Orbit

#58

Post by MrZongle2 »

mehmehshoe wrote: post #2

I am so glad this went well. Too bad it did not happen on Thanksgiving. I had my laptop out and had all the kids looking over my shoulder watching the two launch attempts. Doing my part to get the younger ones interested. Nice picture from the space-x site- http://www.spacex.com/media-gallery/detail/90781/2601

* I had my laptop out and had all the kids looking over my shoulder watching the two launch attempts.*

Yep, same here!

Thank goodness for Kerbal Space Program. It's a marvelous backup.

Re: SpaceX Successfully Completes First Mission to Geostationary Transfer Orbit

#59

Post by chris_mahan »

ufmace wrote: post #48
twistedpair wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just makes me sad that they're not publicly traded, because I would have placed a big bet (investment) on the company last week. Then again, perhaps it's for the best so that Lockheed, Boeing and ULA friends don't just buy them and shut them down. I hope our 21st century Howard Hughes gets rich off this and starts even more disruptive companies with the spoils.

If they were publicly traded, they'd probably get drawn into the Wall Street trend of short-term profit above all else. Why risk whether you can sell the long-term vision of cheap travel to and colonization of Mars to institutional investors and speculators? Odds are it'll never happen at SpaceX unless company ownership is limited to people who share the long-term vision, which is kind of the opposite of being public…

A couple fires and the stock drops 45% in three weeks like TSLA? I think they are not interested in that. It would be too volatile.
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