Our team and mission

This position is based at the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) – Darmstadt, Germany

The Ground Systems Engineering and Innovation Department is responsible for all the ground systems engineering and support activities required to support mission operations and implement innovation. The Department maintains and manages a full level of competences, technologies and services in all engineering disciplines related to ground systems, infrastructure, technology evolution and Engineering R&T and innovation. The Department provides expert support in these areas to the Directorate of Operations for all current and potential missions and leads, in the role of architect, ground systems evolution and innovation implementation in the infrastructure. The Department is furthermore responsible for the overall technical standardisation coordination for the ground segment, in particular in the Management Council of the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS).

Under the direct authority of the Ground Systems Engineering and Innovation Department, the Navigation Support Office is in charge of and coordinates all activities related to the provision of support to projects requiring satellite based navigation expertise, especially covering the area of Precise Orbit Determination, including satellite formation flying and constellations, provision of geodetic- and time-reference for ESA from an operational viewpoint. In addition, the Navigation Support Office is in charge of and coordinates all activities related to development and operations of the associated OPS satellite based navigation facilities. It further promotes innovation in this field of expertise for ground segment applications by participating in scientific and technical networks in Europe and worldwide and conducts leading edge research and technology activities in its domain.

For further details, interested candidates are encouraged to visit: Building infrastructure on Earth to support satellites in Space

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: Support to Development of Visualization software for Precise Navigation

The area of precise navigation requires nowadays more and more that the raw data (e.g. GNSS observations in real time and also none real time, Satellite Laser Ranging observations, Very Large Baseline Interferometer, etc.), the process data and analyzed data as well as the results of the data processing (e.g. Precise Orbit Determination) will have to be visualized in 2/3D manner in order to understand the data processing and also the obtained results in a much better way. The Navigation Support Office has identified the key requirements, which are needed for the development of a dedicated visualization software, that should cover the Navigation Support Office needs related to visualization, ranging from simple 2D plots to complex 3D real time animations.

As an intern, you will support the further development of the Navigation Support Office visualization software. The support for the visualization software development should include the definition and testing of interfaces, development of specific test cases, documentation of specific test cases, validation of user manual and feedback to software development team. The learning areas comprise, experience in cooperation of different teams with a software development project, development of test case, conducting of tests and validation of software tests. Documentation of activities related to processes, tests, user manuals and also software developments

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2) Topic 2: Support to Navigation software testing and validation

The area of precise navigation requires nowadays a continuous upgrade and evolution of the software to continuously improve its performance and accuracy and to handle new observations, models, and algorithms. With many people working at the same time on the development of the software it is fundamental to keep the software version-controlled and validated, to keep it operational and accurate. Within this context, the Navigation Support Office relies on clearly defined procedures for the software version control, handled via Git and Gitlab, and for the automatic testing and validation of the new changes.

Although the testing is done completely automatically, quite some time is spent into review the output of some of the test cases, which could be improved in terms of automation. For this reason, the Navigation Support Office is planning to review and upgrade these validation steps. As an intern, you will support these phases, in particular by designing and developing scripts that can automatically evaluate the performance of the new software against the reference cases. Furthermore, documentation and validation of these developments should be carried out, as well as feedback to the software development team. You will also support the deployment of the newly developed tools into the Navigation operational environment.

The internship will comprise the setup and configuration of the GitLab CI/CD tool and the design, set up and testing of the automatic pipelines, to automatically build, test, monitor, and possibly deploy the newly validated software within the Navigation infrastructure. The learning areas comprise experience in cooperation of different teams with a software development project, development of software under configuration control, conducting of tests, and validation of software tests. Documentation of activities related to processes, tests, user manuals, and also software developments.

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.