Our team and mission

The Future Engineering Division (in support of the program directorates) is responsible for developing and providing the right Engineering Tools, Methods and Standards:

• Leading the Agency centre of excellence for Artificial Intelligence and processing technologies for space applications;
• Leading the centre of excellence for Advanced Simulation Methods including scientific data processing and databases, software applications including human computer interface, support for science operation centres and downstream applications;
• Supporting projects with the centre of competence in Sustainability Engineering for all areas related to CleanSpace, Life Cycle Analysis, EcoDesign, ZeroDebris, REACh and RoHS;
• Performing pre-Phase A mission and system design studies in support of programmes’ preparation of future missions, provide cost assessments and develop next generation methodologies including concurrent engineering (CDF), MBSE, and respective ontology;
• Supporting the evolution of (ECSS) standards supported by all TEC departments and in full coordination with programmes.
   

The ESA Standardisation Section provides the executive role, function and internal coordination for the development of European space standards through the ECSS (European Cooperation for Space Standardisation), which develops standards and handbooks since 1994 with the European Space Community (space agencies, Industry ESA). 
The development of fully digitalised requirements allow ESA projects to interact with the pool of ECSS requirements in standards in new ways and simplify the application of the entire ECSS standards. 
Artificial Intelligence(AI) / Machine Learning(ML) will aid both the production and application of these standards to any space projects.

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

Field(s) of activity for the internship

Topic of the internship: Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning for ECSS space standards requirements analysis 

Five areas have been identified for future Artificial Intelligence development and implementation in standardisation:

1. A chatbot designed to help users discover standardisation information more efficiently;
2. AI-powered selection of requirements from standards tailored to specific project needs (this development has already started in 2025 and will continue);
3. Verifying the project documentation compliance with standards;
4. Identifying duplicate requirements in different standards (prototype already developed in 2024);
5. Generating and improving requirements for standards from user inputs.

The internship topic covers using standards, handbooks, and other relevant documents as input for one or more AI/ML engine(s) to study and analyse (one or more can be selected based on available time):

• Document the current state-of-the-art in using AI for requirements engineering;
• Test different ways of structuring the data from standards and handbooks for best ingestion into AI tools;
• Further develop the prototype tool to identify duplicated requirements between different standards, analyse requirements for duplicates and propose how to tackle them;
• Analyse the cross-references between standards, and references from standards to handbooks;
• Analyse the existing classifications and metadata of ECSS requirements to determine their consistency;
• Identify poorly written requirements (i.e. which cannot be classified by the tools, or which are not self-standing);
• Analyse the usage of the ECSS Glossary across standards.

Learning objectives: the use of space standards in ESA projects, application of ECSS requirements across the space supply chain, analysis of structured data with AI.

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 studying at master’s level. In addition, you must be able to prove that you will be 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 ESA Member State language is an asset.

During the interview, your motivation for applying to this role will be explored.

Knowledge and background in Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning is required. Knowledge and background in Natural Language Processing is an asset.