Young Graduate Trainee for Development of Lunar Exploration Ground Systems

The ESA Human Spaceflight and Robotic Exploration Directorate’s aim is to implement Europe's participation in the development of space infrastructure, such as the International Space Station. The Directorate’s goal is to secure Europe’s central role in global space exploration, deliver new results in both basic and applied science and offer a compelling vision of global endeavour, enriching society and inspiring the next generations. The Directorate teams who work on these projects come from all ESA’s Member States and cover a variety of disciplines, mainly oriented towards engineering and science.

Within the Directorate, the ISS Ground Segment Infrastructure Team has responsibility for a wide range of critical ground-based IT systems and support services that are central to European ground support for ISS operations. The team works to meet the needs of several communities across ISS operations, training, science and medicine. To serve these varied stakeholders, it maintains and pursues numerous IT projects and services, many of which are central to successful activities involving European crew on board the ISS.

In preparation for future exploration beyond low Earth orbit (LEO), to the Moon, and beyond, the European Astronaut Centre (EAC) is pursuing a number of ambitious Future Exploration Projects. The team and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) are working together as partners to deliver and operate the ground segment infrastructure and systems that will play a fundamental role in such Projects.

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

The primary focus of this post will be preparation for ground segment systems for the challenging future demands of the EAC’s Future Exploration Projects:

• collecting and refining user requirements to develop value-driven system and service specifications
• integrating a distributed configuration management system
• migrating numerous existing systems to resources on the ESA’s private cloud platform
• specifying, configuring and testing specialised computing systems for artificial intelligence and machine learning-based applications
• identifying and integrating modern network monitoring and control systems for EAC’s existing IT, ground segment and network infrastructure
• optimising networked storage and back-up systems
• designing, developing and hardening common support system virtual machine templates
• re-provisioning and optimising hypervisor systems
• optimising and developing the EAC’s Mixed Reality Lab infrastructure
• developing and/or integrating centralised monitoring and control systems for:
  • video streaming and processing systems
  • audio & voice systems
  • custom firewall and routing services
• developing software and providing engineering support where required of EAC’s custom internal software systems such as:
  • Master-Schedule: integrated team calendar and schedule
  • EAC-Doodle: meeting scheduler and poll agent
  • VLAN-Creator: VLAN management and configuration tool
  • Remote-Management-Tool: MQTT-based ground segment monitoring and management tool
  • Firewall-Auditor: distributed versioning and Extract Transform & Load system for configuration of EAC’s firewall systems
• familiarising with EAC’s wireless network remote experiment platform to identify areas for application and integration with Future Exploration Projects
• technical and user documentation of developed solutions and system changes
• integrating user feedback into impactful change requests and work plans

You should have just completed, or be in the final year of a university course at Master's level (or equivalent) in a technical or scientific discipline.

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 should demonstrate good interpersonal skills and the capacity to work both independently and as part of a team.

During the interview your motivation and overall professional perspective/career goals will also be explored.