Our team and mission

This position is based at the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) - Darmstadt, Germany

Under the direct authority of the Head of the Mission Operations Department, the Head of the Solar System and Exploration Missions Division is responsible for the ground segment and mission operations implementation for the ESA scientific missions that travel in interplanetary space and for all the exploration missions. The responsibilities of the Division start typically from Phase B through in-flight commissioning to routine mission operations until end of mission. The Head of Division acts as the OPS interface to the ESA Project (and later Mission) Manager of these missions and carries responsibility for all technical, financial and schedule aspects of the ground segment and operations implementation and execution. The Head of Division is responsible for directing and executing flight operations in all mission phases, in particular acting as Flight Operations Director for pre-flight simulations, for Launch and Early Orbit Phase (LEOP) and for critical and commissioning phase operations.

The Head of Division is responsible for coordinating the operations definition phase activities for ESA mission candidates in phase 0 or in phase A/B1. This is performed in conjunction with the relevant operations divisions in OPS-O and ground segment experts in OPS-G.

The Head of the Solar System and Exploration Division also functionally reports to D/HRE in the role of Lead Operations Architect for the Exploration Programme. In this role, the Head of Division leads the Joint Exploration Operations Architecture Team, composed of members from the HRE, OPS and SCI Directorates.
 

Candidates interested are encouraged to visit the ESA website: http://www.esa.int

Field(s) of activity for the internship

Topic of the internship: Furthering the Development of the “Score” Report Processing Software System

This is a software development/maintenance role, for a project that is still experimental although fairly mature. There will be opportunities to write new code and to improve existing code. 

The Score report processing system takes spacecraft configuration information (downlinked on-demand in telemetry report packets) and converts it into human-readable documentation. The system supports change tracking (maintaining an ground record of on-board configuration changes) and hyperlinking between related configuration reports. 

There are various tasks to be performed, and we can choose among the possibilities based on your preferences and experience. 

Possibilities include but are not limited to: 

• Reviewing, improving and formalising the data format (JSON files) that is the interface between the back-end and the front-end of the Score system; 
• Improving the web front-end (currently the most experimental and poorest-quality part of the system); 
• Writing a completely new front-end, with improved features, using contemporary web technology;
• Writing mission-specific report processing modules (in Python) for spacecraft that are not currently using the system;
• Making improvements to the back-end (improved logging, cleaner separation from the front-end, improved mechanisms for feeding telemetry into the system);
• Exploring new concepts for data display (for example, there are situations in which it would be useful to display a table of numbers as a graph);
• Exploring possibilities for linking Score to other data processing tools.

Behavioural competencies

Result Orientation
Operational Efficiency
Fostering Cooperation
Relationship Management
Continuous Improvement
Forward Thinking

For more information, please refer to ESA Core Behavioural Competencies guidebook

Education

You must be a university student, preferably in your final or second-to-last year of a university course at Master’s level and you need to remain enrolled at your University for the entire duration of the internship.

Additional requirements

The working languages of the Agency are English and French. A good knowledge of one of these is required. Knowledge of another Member State language would be an asset.

You are expected to be familiar with some or all of: 

• Unix/Linux 
• Python 
• Javascript 
• HTML 
• JSON 

Familiarity with spacecraft communication standards (standard “services” and their configuration reports) is not expected in advance. This will be acquired during the course of the activity.