Young Graduate Trainee Guidance Navigation and Control Engineering (JUICE)

The JUICE Project Office is in charge of the implementation of the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) Mission to Jupiter and its Galilean moons. The office interfaces with industry, ESA entities ESOC (ESA ground operation centre) and ESAC (ESA Science Astronomy Centre), ESA internal support and the external science team made of scientists external to ESA.

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

The proposed YGT activity will be to support Attitude, Orbit, Control. (AOC) and Navigation Systems developing mission scenario and running them in the JUICE Mission Guidance, Navigation and Control (GNC) Simulator. He will be integrated in the System Section of the JUICE project office.  His activities will be directly supervised by the Attitude, Orbit, Control. (AOC) and Navigation Systems Engineer (Daniele Gherardi).

The YGT will perform the following tasks:

• become familiar with JUICE Mission objective and mission scenarios, with particular focus on the spacecraft Attitude, Orbit, Control. (AOC) and Navigation Systems.
• exploit the JUICE Mission Guidance, Navigation and Control (GNC) Simulator Software in order to evaluate the instrument operations for scientific observations and developing tools to improve the data post processing.
• developing tools to extract from the spacecraft trajectory profiles possible S/C attitude profiles to be used on the AOCS and GNC simulator.
• evaluation of performance in view of spacecraft design and operation implementation for all different phases of the mission, in order to increase the knowledge of the spacecraft capability over the JUICE mission life.
• evaluation readiness of the JUICE GNC simulator to support the in-orbit Software maintenance by exercising the AOCS and GNC software auto-coding.
• the role will encompass the interaction with other section and division within Science and across the agency.

 
The AOCS and GNC subsystem is a central element of Spacecraft which involve interaction with all Spacecraft sub-systems (e.g. electrical, software, mechanical, pointing, thermal, communication, operations constraints, etc) and several system level key performances. You will have the chance to interact with all experts and share with them the results of his analysis which are derived from the different simulation scenarios developed as part of his regular tasks.

You should have just completed, or be in the final year of a university course at Master's level (or equivalent) in a technical or scientific discipline.

You should have a background in any kind of major subjects related studies in the broadest sense, such as control system, software simulations, or orbital dynamics. Computing and software development skills beyond the use of office tools is required. Knowledge of Matlab/Simulink and C coding and SPICE tools are considered an asset.

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.

You should demonstrate good interpersonal skills and the capacity to work both independently and as part of a team.

During the interview your motivation and overall professional perspective/career goals will also be explored.