You can get your foot in the door with some more high level programs doing things like data processing and visualizations, and once you are there you will be able to find the opportunity to get your hands dirty with space code.
I worked in a group doing solar physics research and although my code didn't get pushed to a satellite, I did get to do a lot of awesome analysis on data sent back from the satellite.
You should browse sites like the AAS Job Register as well: http://jobregister.aas.org/
The Science Engineering and Support/Technical staff positions are often open to people without a PhD and offer a great opportunity to work on space science.
As an aside: How are you selecting your man pages? Do you have a specific group in your sights, or will you pick day by day?
