Shea Ferring, VP of Mission Assurance at Firefly Aerospace

Shea Ferring serves as the vice president of mission assurance at Firefly Aerospace, an Austin, Texas-based company that develops small and medium-sized launch vehicles. 

With a career spanning over 25 years, he has gained experience in the design, integration, test, and leadership of space systems. 

Ferring was promoted as mission assurance VP after a nearly three-year stint as director of strategy and mission management, during which time he shared his expertise in vehicle engineering, business development, mission management and operations to a team of Firefly Aerospace professionals, according to his LinkedIn profile. 

Previously, he was a part of the management team at Bradford ECAPS. As manager of technical programs, Ferring helped develop a green monopropellant and thruster technology, which had been integrated into the PRISMA satellite. 

He also spent two years at private defense contractor Vencore as a commercial space chief engineer. While at Vencore, Ferring provided launch vehicle oversight and integration and test operations support to space missions, including the Falcon 9 and Dnepr launch programs.

In addition, he was a long-time propulsion engineering manager at Orbital Sciences, which now operates under Northrop Grumman. During his six-year stint at the company, he managed a team of propulsion engineers responsible for the Missile Defense Agency Targets programs and Antares /Taurus II space launch vehicle PE teams.  

The executive also worked for Jackson and Tull, where he led systems and integration and test activities for the TacSat II space vehicle.

Ferring graduated from Arizona State University with bachelor and master degrees in aerospace engineering.