Intern in the Ground Systems Engineering and Innovation Department

Our team and mission

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 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 the Management Council of the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS).

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: Big data and data analytics solutions

Spacecraft generate enormous amounts of data as part of the monitoring and control process. This data is being stored, processed, and analyses in the mission operations ground segment to understand spacecraft health, correlate events, and feed artificial intelligence algorithms. In the context of this topic, as an intern, you will be exposed to the big data and data analytics infrastructure of the Agency and design and implement big data exploitation software.

2) Topic 2: Software Innovation

Our Advanced Ground Software Application Lab (AGSA Lab) is a centre of excellence that provides the environment for innovations in areas such as next-generation graphical user interfaces, distributed operations software, CubeSats (in particular OPS-SAT), augmented and virtual reality, deployments in cloud-base architectures, cybersecurity, quantum computing-enabled software, support to research studies and/or international standardisation activities. As an intern, you will be using these capabilities to design and develop innovative software solutions to improve the capabilities of the mission operations ground segment.

3) Topic 3: DevSecOps

Modern software engineering makes heavy use of DevOps and more recently even DevSecOps technologies in order to iterate on software deployment and roll-out faster and faster and to implement a fully agile development concept. As an intern, you will be exposed to the ongoing DevSecOps rollout of the mission operations ground segment and be encouraged to improve on the efficiency of this process.

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.

Educational knowledge:
1) Topic 1: Knowledge and background in computer science and big data would be an asset.
2) Topic 2: Knowledge and background in computer science would be an asset. 
3) Topic 3: Knowledge and background in computer science and Dev(Sec)Ops methodologies would be an asset.