Our team and mission

The mission of the Quality, Dependability and Product Assurance Support Division is to contribute to the success of ESA projects and activities by providing expert support, disseminating knowledge in its areas of responsibility and establishing quality management systems within ESA. The disciplines covered by the Division include system safety, dependability (i.e. reliability, availability and maintainability), quality assurance and quality management, and software quality. Quality assurance, safety and dependability engineering are primarily concerned with the development and implementation of methods, techniques and processes to achieve confidence in safe and reliable system design, manufacturing, operation and disposal.

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

Field(s) of activity/research for the traineeship

As a Young Graduate Trainee, you will contribute to the following activity:

In-orbit failure prediction using artificial intelligence

• Development of methodologies that make use of neural networks (NN) and artificial intelligence (AI) for in-orbit prediction of core satellite platform unit and satellite payload failures. The end goal is, with the help of AI and failure prognostics, to detect failures before their occurrence, making it possible to act sooner and therefore increase system availability by preventing failure occurrence and its effects on mission performance.
• Assessment of potential use in the context of the in-orbit return on experience (REX).

In addition, you will have the opportunity to take an active role in the following activities:

• Application of the Delphi Method in space mission concurrent engineering for improved risk identification. The Delphi Method is a group decision-making technique that involves consulting a panel of experts through systematic and iterative rounds of feedback. The traineeship will consist in applying this method (or an adaptation of it) in a concurrent engineering environment with the objective of improving the identification of technical risks in pre-phase A space mission studies.
• You will be expected to investigate the method, adapt it for use in pre-phase A concurrent engineering for space missions, facilitate the risk identification process, document the outcome of the risk identification process, and finally compare it to the current expert-judgement risk identification process based on agreed effectiveness criteria.

Technical competencies

Behavioural competencies

Result Orientation

Operational Efficiency

Fostering Cooperation

Relationship Management

Continuous Improvement

Forward Thinking

Education

You should have just completed, or be in the final year of your Master’ s degree in computer science or systems engineering with training in artificial intelligence.

Additional requirements

You should have good interpersonal and communication skills and should be able to work in a multicultural environment, both independently and as part of a team.

Knowledge of a Reliability, Availability Maintainability and Safety (RAMS) discipline or a Failure Detection Isolation and Recovery (FDIR) technique would be 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.

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