Young Graduate Trainee for Advanced Design Support Concepts for Human Interplanetary Missions

The Advanced Concepts & Studies Office ensures the overall coordination, coherence and performance of programme and corporate studies in support of the preparation of the Agency’s future activities in line with its long-term strategic objectives and priorities. This includes the Advanced Concepts Team (ACT), ESA’s in-house research think-tank.

The ACT performs beyond-the-horizon multidisciplinary research for space, exploring new approaches to space-related R&D (including competitions, prizes, games), research for disruptive innovation, developing an expert network at academic level and providing a capability for fast first-look analysis of problems, challenges and opportunities. The Team engages in collaborative research relations with university institutes and research centres, focusing on advanced research topics of potential strategic interest to the space sector and experimenting with new forms of teamwork. To achieve its goal, a multidisciplinary research environment is provided in which young scientific and engineering post-doctoral and postgraduate researchers work on emerging technologies and innovative concepts.

More information on the Team is accessible on the ACT website (www.esa.int/act ).

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

Future human missions will include establishing a sustained extra-terrestrial human presence beyond low Earth orbit, involving a likely increase in mission length and new challenges and questions regarding the influence of psychological and physiological factors. This would make 'human factors' a critical part of mission planning, focusing on the role of humans in complex systems, the design of equipment and facilities for human use and the development of environments for comfort and safety.

You will therefore study the role of design and human factors in human space exploration, construct a taxonomy of approaches, techniques, ideas and designs and their evolution with available technologies. You will develop a design with the focus on functionality, usability, ergonomics, manufacturability, sustainability, cost and aesthetics.

Tasks will depend on your expertise and motivation and may include:

• designing equipment, facilities or environments for long-term missions with specific psychological and/or physiological effects
• designing interfaces for interaction with information and automation during long-term missions
• designing self-replicating or in-space manufactured hardware
• designing tools for interplanetary science and exploration
• designing medical care and crew health maintenance equipment for long-term missions

 
Depending on the nature of the project, you may be required to interface with the academic community in these fields. You will be a full member of the ACT and therefore expected to contribute to the development and assessment of new concepts and technologies for space applications in close interaction with ACT researchers who work on a broad range of disciplines, including: informatics, artificial intelligence, climate modelling, energy systems, fundamental physics, biomimetics, computational management science and mission analysis. Based on your detailed background and interests and Team opportunities and needs, you will be involved in a number of other ACT initiatives including studies conducted via the Ariadna scheme (www.esa.int/ariadna ) and will participate in reporting and communicating Team results internally and externally.

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, specifically in industrial design or a related field.

Demonstrated set of design skills and an understanding of the product development process is required together with the interest in applied research.

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.