Our team and mission

The Science Mission Support Section is responsible for:

• Mission preparation, LEOP (Launch and Early Orbit Phase), critical and routine operations in the field of flight dynamics for future interplanetary and Lagrange missions, including Plato, Rosalind Franklin, Ramses, Comet Interceptor, Ariel, Envision, Argonaut and LISA;
• critical and routine flight dynamics operations for inner solar system missions Bepi-Colombo and Solar-Orbiter;
• critical and routine flight dynamics operations for Juice, the Jupiter moons mission;
• critical and routine flight dynamics operations for the Hera asteroid mission;
• routine operations for Mars missions ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter and Mars Express;
• routine operations for the Euclid observatory mission;
• development, validation and utilisation of operational solutions for the above science missions.

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

Field(s) of activity for the internship

​Tracking of interplanetary spacecraft suffer from plasma effects along the signal’s line of sight. The effect is larger the closer the signal gets to the Sun. There has been a significant evolution in the recent decade by ESA and other external entities to model the interplanetary plasma distribution in quasi real-time based on data from space weather observatories.

You will exploit this data and verify whether these can be suitably used to improve deep-space orbit determination of ESA spacecraft. The following will be your tasks for this activity:

• ​Retrieve and extract relevant interplanetary plasma data from ESA Space Weather products;
• ​implement functionality to compute total plasma content along the line-of-sight from ground station to an ESA interplanetary spacecraft, making use of in-house astrodynamics software;
• ​derive plasma delays for Doppler and range data based on the physical interaction along the signal path;
• ​apply the mechanism on historic data trying to reproduce and verify the methodology;
• ​produce predictions of plasma effects on radiometric data based on current Space Weather data;
• ​configure a near-realtime nowcasting functionality to flag current tracking data of deep-space missions for impact of interplanetary plasma effects in the routine orbit determination;
• ​if the method is proven to be successful, extend it to an operational tool for orbit determination to compute interplanetary plasma corrections. ​

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 in your final or second-to-last year of university course 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.