Our team and mission

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

LEO-PNT is an In Orbit Demonstration project within the FutureNAV Programme of ESA’s Directorate of Navigation. This project includes includes the definition, development, launch, operations, and experimentation of a reduced constellation of In-Orbit Demonstration satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) for demonstrating innovative Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) services, as complement and augmentation of existing Global Navigation Satellites Systems (GNSS) such as Galileo and GPS. LEO-PNT encompasses space, ground and user technologies and services, and aims to demonstrate capabilities and that would serve to meet the future challenging user demands on PNT domain and accelerate the readiness of European industry in this domain. LEO-PNT aims to adopt ‘New Space’ approaches for a fast-track implementation.

Some of the possible advantages of LEO-PNT is enabling faster high-accuracy positioning, enhanced services in harsh environment, more robust PNT services, geometry and frequency diversity, additional PNT data and 2-way PNT links. Those features would support a wide range of applications in different market sectors / verticals, including for instance, autonomous vehicles – road / UAVs – and digital mobility in general, railway, maritime, critical infrastructure, 5G/6G networks, Internet-of-Things, among others.

The LEO-PNT Project Team is responsible of the definition and implementation of the In Orbit Demonstration and the identification of directions, conclusions and lessons-learned towards a future European LEO-PNT operational system.

For further information visit our web site: http://www.esa.int

Field(s) of activity for the internship

You can choose between the following topics:

1) Topic 1: Autonomous orbit keeping in LEO-PNT constellation

LEO-PNT requires large constellation 250+ satellites and low cost operations, so autonomous maneuvers for orbit keeping and collision avoidance are paramount, the activity should study how to adopt the concept of autonomous maneuvers on-board to stay within a predefined space corridor in the specific conditions of a LEO-PNT constellation:

• Exploitation of very precise on-board orbit determination and time
• Trade-off between infrequent maneuvers vs continuous small maneuvers (e.g. chemical vs electrical propulsion)
• Impact to navigation service provision

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2) Topic 2: LEO-PNT Constellation Design Simulation Tools Development

The LEO-PNT final concept will require the use of a large constellation of satellites in LEO orbits. The design of this concept involves multiple complex trade-off that shall be simulated. The activity will include the development of a system simulator (typically in JAVA with Orekit libraries) modeling the GNSS constellations (MEO and LEO), the Signal In Space and the Navigation Filters. This simulator shall support system trade-off for the consolidation of the specification for the full constellation deployment.

The activities will include:
A) Development of Flight Dynamics Simulator, simulating GNSS constellation and GNSS user
B) Integration of Signal In Space
C) Modeling of Navigation filters (for LEO-PNT constellation and for ground users)
D) Contribution to constellation systems level trade-offs:

• Constellation architecture trade-off
• Deployment/launch strategy trade-off
• Systems reliability trade-off
• Orbit control strategies and specifications trade-off
• Systems availability trade-off (typically driving propulsion systems selection)

All trade-off shall include technical and programmatic (typically schedule and cost) elements.

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3) Topic 3: AI for LEO-PNT space system engineering

LEO-PNT is a fast-growing trend and large constellation with complex system engineering tasks is expected for the definition of an operational system. The current approach for system space engineering requirement generation and tailoring of existing standard relies on human work with inheritance requirement inconsistency, duplications, requirement misunderstanding, etc. The work should assess the possibility to exploit generative Artifical Intelligence (AI) to write and check space system engineering requirements for radio navigation systems. At the same time, AI can be used to support the use of existing standard such as ECSS (e.g.: asking dialogue questions to check which ECSS requirement should be used or to extract specific information without knowing exactly where the information is, etc).

Behavioural competencies

Result Orientation
Operational Efficiency
Fostering Cooperation
Relationship Management
Continuous Improvement
Forward Thinking

Education

You must have student status and be enrolled at university for the entire duration of the internship. You should preferably be in your final or second to last year of a university course at master’s level in a technical or scientific discipline.

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.

Additional Requirements:

1) Topic 1:

• Experience on the use of mathematical and engineering packages and programming languages for scientific and technical computing, such as Python, Java, STK, Matlab/Octave/Scilab is recommended
• Knowledge and background in orbital mechanics, flight dynamics and radionavigation is an asset

2) Topic 2:

• Experience on the use of mathematical and engineering packages and programming languages for scientific and technical computing, such as Python, Java, STK, Matlab/Octave/Scilab is recommended
• Knowledge and background in orbital mechanics, flight dynamics, Kalman filtering and radionavigation is an asset

3) Topic 3:

• Experience on the use of mathematical and engineering packages and programming languages for scientific and technical computing, such as Python, Java, STK, Matlab/Octave/Scilab is recommended
• Knowledge and background in machine learning/AI and radionavigation is an asset