Our team and mission

The ESA Academy, part of the ESA Education Office, is the Agency’s overarching programme for space projects and training opportunities for university students. Through a tailored transfer of space know-how and interaction with space professionals, the Academy takes students on a learning path that complements their academic education.

In accordance with the Space for Education 2030 vision approved by the ESA Member States in December 2022, the ESA Education Programme now has an expanded scope and a richer activity portfolio, structured into the following two main activity pillars:

1. The STEM Learning and Inspiration programme, the aim of which is to educate and inspire young people between 3 and 18 years of age, directly or through their educators.
2. The ESA Academy programme for the education and engagement of people aged 18 and above, up to early career level. 

The activities for these target groups are divided into three activity blocks, working in synergy with each other whenever possible:

• Space to Mind: This will be an evolution of the current Training and Learning programme and will offer an extended and diversified portfolio of training sessions resulting in very useful, practical qualifications provided by professional experts, covering a large range of space-related topics. The aim is to complement academic curricula and better prepare participants for a space-related career.
• Mind to Matter: An evolution of the “hands-on projects” initiative, this block consists of space-related projects using ground- and space-based experiment platforms, such as sounding rockets, parabolic flights, CubeSats and the International Space Station, to complement knowledge and offer hands-on experience in an international context through project-based learning.
• Space to Engage: New and structured collaboration models both within ESA and externally with academia, industry and institutions to make a shared contribution to the preparation of future talent in terms of knowledge, skills and competences through joint training courses, challenges, projects and ESA scholarships.

The ESA Education Office works in close cooperation with specialists from ESA and industry, university departments and other research organisations. ESA’s ESEC-Galaxia site in Belgium hosts several facilities tailored for the ESA Academy programme, including the CubeSat Support Facility, a cleanroom laboratory with integration and test equipment for CubeSats, and the Training and Learning Facility, a state-of-the art training room that is also equipped to support concurrent engineering workshops.

Information on the activities of the ESA Academy can be found at https://www.esa.int/Education/ESA_Academy 

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

Field(s) of activity/research for the traineeship

As a Young Graduate Trainee within the Mind to Matter activity block, you will support the coordination of hands-on activities and experiments for university students on all platforms that fall under the Practical Education in Technology, Research and Innovation (PETRI) programme. In close coordination with programme partners (commercial and institutional), and in cooperation with the facility operators and other professional specialists, under guidance from your ESA mentor, you will support the selection of experiments proposed by university student teams and will oversee the projects throughout their entire lifecycle (concept, design, development, testing, launch/experiment campaign, data analysis).

In particular, you will:

• support the call for proposals, evaluation procedure and selection of experiments;
• undertake periodic reviews of technical experiment (experiment design/operation) and project management documents;
• liaise with the project teams and accompany the experiment projects throughout their design, development and testing;
• track teams’ technical progress between formal reviews;
• interface with ESA and partners’ technical experts;
• support the preparation, coordination and delivery of training workshops;
• support progress meetings and project reviews to verify the experiments’ readiness;
• assist with coordination of logistical arrangements for reviews, integration and test events, experiment campaigns and workshops;
• contribute to the successful execution of the campaigns;
• ensure a proper oversight of the analysis of the experiment results;
• assist in identifying new research platforms and integrating them into the programme;
• provide assistance for the PETRI programme’s outreach campaigns through ESA communication channels.

Pending further expansions of the programme, you will support students wishing to perform experiments:

• on board the International Space Station using the ICE Cubes facility; 
• in the ZARM drop tower facility in Bremen, Germany;
• aboard Novespace’s A310 parabolic flight airplane in Bordeaux, France;
• in ESA’s Large Diameter Centrifuge at ESTEC, Netherlands.

You will also be involved in additional technical and managerial tasks to further develop the programme and may contribute to other student activities and projects within the framework of the ESA Academy as required.

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 a scientific or technical discipline, preferably related to space.

Additional requirements

You should show a good understanding of system engineering principles and practices and should have a solid foundation in project/programme management. 
You should have good interpersonal, communication and presentation skills and should be able to work in a fast-paced, multicultural environment, both independently and as part of a team.
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.