Our team and mission

This position is based at the European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC) – Near Madrid, Spain

Under the direct authority of the Directorate of Science, the Head of the Science Operations Department is responsible for the development of the science operations infrastructure under the Directorate responsibility, the operation of the Directorate’s missions once successfully commissioned, and the curation of all scientific data in the missions’ legacy phase. These responsibilities are discharged in full coordination with the Directorate’s Departments and Offices and as appropriate, with the Directorate of Operations (D/OPS).

In implementing its duties, the Science Operations Department is supported by the:

• Mission Management and Science Operations Division (SCI-SO);
• Science Operations Development Division (SCI-SD);
• Data Science and Archives Division (SCI-SA).

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

Field(s) of activity for the internship

Topic of the internship: New approaches for interactive instrument monitoring for XMM-Newton

The X-ray Multi-Mirror observatory (XMM-Newton) is one of ESA’s major science missions supporting a lively scientific community for the least quarter century since its launch in December 1999. The mission is in excellent health and is expected to be operated for many more years to come. This also implies continued improvements and rejuvenation of existing software systems.

The XMM-Newton Science Operations Centre (SOC) at ESAC carefully monitors the health and status of the instruments onboard the satellite in order to identify anomalies or trends that need attention. In recent years this work has included the use of a state-of-the art database, called ARES, used by multiple ESA missions, the development of a Python interface to this database and the ingestion into the ARES system of all the XMM-Newton trend analysis instrument data. At the same time, the SOC is making more and more use of the ESA Datalabs platform https://datalabs.esa.int/ and is investigating as well the inclusion of Artificial Intelligence or Machine Learning techniques in these instrument monitoring tasks. While some of the of these new approaches are already operational, other areas remain to be migrated or investigated for future implementations.

The main goal of this internship is to explore the rejuvenation of further interactive instrument monitoring tasks, within ESA Datalabs, to these new approaches, working on frontend solutions for some tasks based on the tools and methods developed in the last years. At the minimum at the prototype level, possibly directly leading to tools being used operationally in the future. The work will take place within a team of astronomers, instrument specialists and software developers who will advise and instruct on the specific problems and existing tools. The internship will provide hands-on experience on systematic software development for an operational environment as well as provide insights into the operations of a scientific mission.

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.

• Python and JavaScript experience are essential;
• Experience with Docker technologies and databases would be desirable.