Your tasks and responsibilities will include:

• ensuring, as a goal, that the maximum operational and scientific return from the Vigil mission is achieved throughout the study, development, operations and archiving phases within technical, financial, programmatic and safety constraints;
• working in coordination with the ESA Space Weather Office to:
  • ensure that the Vigil Mission, Vigil Mission requirements, is fit for purpose with respect to the required/target return;
  • ensure the coherence of traceability, apportionment and justification of requirements between the Space Weather System and the Vigil Mission requirements;
• coordinating the definition and refinement of scientific and operational requirements with the corresponding Mission Advisory Group (MAG) and/or Payload Advisory Group (PAG) and monitoring their implementation during all phases;
• coordinating, together with the MAG/PAG, the analysis of the impact on scientific and operational products of any deviations in the instrument performance from that specified in the Vigil Mission Requirements Document (MRD); in this context, the Mission Scientist is supported by the Mission/Payload Advisory Groups in discharging their responsibilities;
• management of the Vigil Space Segment mission requirements and maintenance of the Vigil Mission Requirements Document (MRD);
• acting as the interface for all Vigil related scientific matters between internal study, development, and operations teams and external scientific teams and the space weather community;
• coordinate interfacing with the ESA Space Weather Service Network with the Space Weather Service Coordinator;
• convening and co-chairing or chairing the advisory groups (MAG/PAG);
• preparing and disseminating relevant scientific documentation and reporting to ESA management and interfacing with the advisory structure (MAG/PAG);
• with the aid and support of the MAG, promoting the mission to the wider space weather community through conferences and electronic means, and supporting broader Directorate and Agency communications, outreach and education activities;
• maintaining personal scientific research activity, to ensure up-to-date knowledge and credibility at individual and departmental level with respect to the external scientific community;
• in cooperation with the Space Weather Office, assessing the maturity of the mission throughout its nominal lifetime using the science readiness levels in order to scope and/or adjust support activities and supporting the Vigil Science Plan:
  • establishing and implementing the science activities (identified in the Science Plan) that need to be conducted throughout the mission nominal lifetime to meet the mission requirements and to achieve the mission objectives as defined in the MRD;
  • preparing the inputs to the development of the mission Level 1 data processing algorithms and preparing the data user community for the mission data exploitation, for example by running data utilisation studies supporting this development where needed in accordance with the Vigil Science Plan;
• supporting the Mission Manager during Phase E2 to ensure that:
  • the mission data are fully exploited such that mission requirements are met;
  • mission objectives are achieved within the nominal mission lifetime;
  • algorithms and data products evolve;
  • new operational data products are developed;
  • feedback is gathered from the mission exploitation phase that may be useful for the preparation of future missions.

Requirements: 

Education

A PhD in the field of space physics or space environment modelling is required for this post.