The first time I knew Astrodynamics was a career was when I watched The Martian with Matt Damon. In that movie, Astrodynamics Specialist Rich was the one who solved the return trajectory problem and got the spacecraft back to Mars.
Dynamics is a familiar engineering term around structures and systems. Astrodynamics is akin to orbital mechanics.
So what does a Astrodynamics Specialist do?
There’s a lot of thinking, theorizing and calculating in this role. In astrodynamics, developing algorithms to solve very specific space problems likely takes up most of your time.
What can I study if I want to be a Astrodynamics Specialist?
Information Science
Probability & Statistics
Systems Engineering
Orbital mechanics
Astronautical or Aerospace Engineering
An Astrodynamics Specialist can earn a salary in the range of $91,000 – $131,000.
Are there Astrodynamics Specialist jobs?
According to LinkedIn*, there are 3000+ people in the United States with Astrodynamics in their job title.
*The people search on the term “astrodynamics” was conducted on 11.11.18
