Our team and mission

This research fellowship will be carried out in ESA’s Advanced Concepts Team (ACT), a group of researchers, mainly research fellows (post-docs) and recently graduated early stage researchers from a wide variety of academic fields aiming for an academic career. The Team’s task is to monitor, perform and foster research on advanced space systems, innovative concepts and working methods. Externally, it interacts almost exclusively with academia and operates as a truly interdisciplinary team bound by the highest scientific standards. Via its research, the Team acts as a pathfinder to explore novel and potentially promising areas for ESA and the space sector, ranging from applied to basic fundamental research topics. An important task of the Team is to communicate scientific trends and results as input to the Agency’s strategic planning.

You are also strongly encouraged to familiarise yourself with the research carried out by the ACT (https://www.esa.int/act), in particular in the field of mission analysis and the related open-source projects.

You are encouraged to visit the ESA website: https://www.esa.int/

Field(s) of activity/research for the traineeship

You will carry out research in the field of advanced mission analysis, with emphasis on the comparison of non-traditional guidance, navigation and control techniques such as imitation learning, deep reinforcement learning and model predictive control. Areas of research will be partly chosen by you based on your own expert judgement and insight into trends and developments along with your motivation, and partly chosen by the Team to follow the Agency’s strategic directions.

Scientifically, you will:
• propose and perform research in the field of mission analysis, where appropriate in collaboration with universities of ESA Member States (in particular through the Ariadna scheme: www.esa.int/ariadna);
• explore synergies between machine learning, artificial intelligence and artificial neural networks and the fundamentals of spaceflight mechanics, celestial mechanics and mission design;
• propose and perform a comparative analysis between new emerging paradigms for on-board G&C, including G&CNets (trained through both imitation learning and reinforcement learning) and non-linear model predictive control;
• further develop open-source software developed by the ACT for use in advanced mission analysis: pygmo (optimisation), pykep (astrodynamics)and pyaudi (differential algebra);
• coordinate the Team’s participation in competitions in the field of aerospace, including GTOC (Global Trajectory Optimization Competition);
• organise, design and administrate competitions on proposed topics via the European Space Agency’s Kelvins platform (https://kelvins.esa.int).

As an ACT researcher, you will:
• publish results in peer-reviewed publications and use modern communication tools to communicate with the broader audience within and beyond ESA;
• lead and assist interdisciplinary projects with other ACT researchers;
• participate with the Team in the assessment of proposed space system concepts – as these are not solely restricted to artificial intelligence and computer science – and propose new concepts and assessment studies;
• perform and participate in assessments on subjects of strategic interest to ESA, providing in-house expertise for strategy development;
• benefit, for your research, from the technology and engineering expertise available at ESTEC.

Technical competencies

Behavioural competencies

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

Education

You should have recently completed, or be close to completion of a PhD in a related technical or scientific discipline. Preference will be given to applications submitted by candidates within five years of receiving their PhD. In particular for this position, the following is required:

You must have obtained:
• a degree in engineering, informatics, computer science or celestial mechanics;
• A PhD (completed before taking up duty) in celestial mechanics or aerospace engineering, with the subject of your thesis relevant to the description of the tasks outlined above.

Additional requirements

You should also have:

• Aptitude for and interest in prospective interdisciplinary research;
• Ability to contextualise specialised areas of research and quickly assess their potential with respect to other domains and applications (rapid prototyping);
• Academic networking to add active links to universities and research institutes;
• Ability to work in a team, while being able to work individually regarding your personal research plans and directions;
• Natural curiosity and a passion for new subjects and research areas;
• Proficiency in C++ and Python programming languages;
• Experience in open-source projects, GPU programming, distributed computing and cloud computing would be considered strong assets.

Specific characteristics of the research fellowship
The position of Research Fellow in ESA’s Advanced Concepts Team is similar to a regular academic post-doc placement with, however, a few key differences:

1. ACT Research Fellows have no teaching obligations. However, they will likely be involved in the mentoring of Young Graduate Trainees and student interns within the Team.
2. As the Team does not have the position of professor or similar, ACT Research Fellows have more academic independence than most post-docs. They therefore have more freedom but also more responsibility for their research directions and approaches.
3. ACT Research Fellows join a diverse, changing and interdisciplinary research team embedded in a large space agency, in contrast to a more specialised, focused research group with closely related or similar competencies.
4. ACT Research Fellows need to actively reach out to other disciplines, bringing to bear their competencies in interdisciplinary research projects and encouraging other researchers to join them in their core research projects (research spanning the intersection of various disciplines).
5. ACT Research Fellows need to communicate their expertise and research results internally and externally, including the potential implications and importance for ESA’s long-term strategy.

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.