Our team and mission

This position is based at the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) – Noordwijk, Netherlands

Under the direct authority of the Director of Earth Observation Programmes, the Head of the Projects Department (H/EOP-P) is responsible for the overall system definition, and implementation activities for future missions and instruments, and management of approved ESA Earth Observation projects up to and including launch and in-orbit verification, in accordance with mission requirements established during preparatory activities and maintained by EOP-S.

EOP-P tasks include, in particular:

• consolidation of the final programmatic frame of the future missions to be implemented (Cost at Completion, schedule, procurement, and geo-return), done in coordination with EOP-S and F for Earth Explorer Missions;
• implementation of Phase A for Copernicus and Meteorological missions with participation of EOP-F;
• detailed design and implementation of the space segment of approved ESA Earth Observation missions up to and inclusive of launch and in-orbit verification, i.e., Phases B1, B2, C, D, E1;
• support to EOP-F and EUMETSAT for the overall mission definition of Meteorological missions;
• definition and maintenance of mission-specific system requirements documents, coherent with the mission requirements maintained by EOP-S;
• overall mission-specific system integration and pre-launch verification, with the support of D/OPS and EOP-G;
• provision of in-orbit commissioning with the support of D/OPS and EOP-G;
• routine operations phase support to EOP-G for satellite on-board issues, in collaboration with D/OPS for satellite command and control issues;
• coordination with other Directorates of the ESA Applications Area (D/NAV, D/CSC) on topics of common interest.

The design and implementation of the Flight Operations Segment and Payload Data Ground Segment are delegated respectively to D/OPS (all except Meteorological missions) and EOP-G (Earth Explorers).

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

Field(s) of activity for the internship

Topic of the internship: CO2M mission

The CO2M mission aims at monitoring the anthropogenic CO2 emissions from Space. It is a key element providing the European Commission with the means to monitor worldwide at a high spatial resolution the evolution of the main greenhouse gases. The spacecraft is made of three optical instruments. One of them, the Multi Angle Polarimeter (MAP) aims at measuring the aerosols concentrations to improve the retrieval of the CO2. MAP is a highly innovative optical instrument embarking a very integrated focal plane array. The focal plane array is composed of a detector and several layers of components stacked on top of it which provide both spectral filtering and polarization filtering. When the useful light is falling on the focal plane array, several phenomena (reflection, scattering, polarisation) make the analysis of the images difficult. In a first instance you will have to familiarize yourself with the concept of the instrument, in particular the optical design of its focal plane. You will then have to consolidate an optical modelling of the focal plane in order to simulate the imagery. Comparison with already measured images in different configurations (e.g. monochromatic & polychromatic light sources) will support the modelling. A large quantity of data has already been recorded. Processing such large set of data will help to support the modelling. A statistical approach will be necessary to apprehend the behaviour of the large number of pixels of the detector. Once simulated, and correlated with available measured data, the model will be used to support the elaboration of a correction of this unusual type of stray light.
You will work with the engineer responsible for the MAP instrument, as well as the optical engineer and performance engineer working on the MAP instrument.

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.

A good knowledge of Matlab (or Python) software is required. Knowledge of an optical simulation software (Zemax, CodeV, Fred) is an asset.