Intern in the Mission Operations IT and Operations Control Centre Section

Internship Opportunity in the Directorate of Operations.

ESA is an equal opportunity employer, committed to achieving diversity within the workforce and creating an inclusive working environment. We therefore welcome applications from all qualified candidates irrespective of gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, beliefs, age, disability or other characteristics. Applications from women are encouraged.

Location

This position is based at the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) - Darmstadt, Germany

Under the direct authority of the Director of Operations, the Mission Operations Department is responsible for the preparation and conducting of flight operations for all ESA missions. For this purpose, the Mission Operations Department is the primary interface of OPS towards the Programme Directorates. In addition to operational support to ESA customer missions, the Department is responsible for the support to missions of external customers and, in particular, to missions of other space agencies. Operational activities include both spacecraft and related ground segment operations.

The Mission Operations IT and Operations Control Centre team is devoted to providing essential infrastructure and platform services for mission operations. The team ensures that control rooms and the related IT infrastructure remain fit for purpose and that they continuously evolve to meet current and future needs. The managed physical and virtualized computing, storage, and communication systems provide the backbone for ESA’s operations capabilities, spanning ESOC and ESA’s network of antenna stations.

For further information visit our web site: http://www.esa.int

You can choose between the following topics:

1) Topic 1: Service Capacity Analytics

As an intern, you will learn about the needs of ESA’s space missions, how they evolve over time and how common infrastructure services can address their diverse needs. 

Your challenge will be to develop an optimization model for the efficient (cost, space, energy, CO2, etc.) use of infrastructure services. In this venture, you will work on both the demand and supply sides, mining present and planned capacity information as well as expected future capacity needs. Further extending and applying the model, you will enable simulations to aid infrastructure investment decisions. 

Through automation, your work will also reduce manual labor and overall help de-risk capacity management activities. 

In the process, you will apply programming, mathematical modelling, and data analytics skills. 

2) Topic 2: Service Health and Performance Dashboard

As an intern, you will learn about the information needs of different space missions when it comes to health, availability, and performance of the utilized infrastructure services. 

Your challenge will be the design, development, and deployment of web-based Service Dashboards in close collaboration with the responsible operations teams. There are two main areas of interest: 

Determining suitable data sources, indicators of interest, levels of detail, as well as the right visualization methods and tools will be the at the core of the activity. 

As a result, ESA’s space missions will have immediate and near real-time access to service status and health information. The added transparency is expected to inspire trust and improve efficiency when troubleshooting anomalies. Showcasing selected dashboards is expected to further promote the Mission Operations IT and Operations Control Centre team. 

In the process, you will apply system design, system administration and deployment automation and skills.

Result Orientation
Operational Efficiency
Fostering Cooperation
Relationship Management
Continuous Improvement
Forward Thinking

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.

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.

Additional requirements:

1) Topic 1:

• Good command and experience in Python or an alternate programming language suitable for prototyping.
• Good knowledge and experience in applying techniques from Operations Research for problem-solving.
• Experience in programmatically parsing structured and semi-structure data.
• Experience in programmatically accessing web services application programming interfaces.
• General knowledge of IT systems and infrastructures

2) Topic 2: 

• Good knowledge and experience in the design and deployment of web-applications (front-end and back-end)
• Good knowledge and experience in applied UX and UI design
• Good knowledge and experience with time-series database and metrics collection
• Good knowledge and experience with interactive analytics and visualization tools
• Experience in programmatically parsing structured and semi-structure data.
• Experience in programmatically accessing web services application programming interfaces.
• General understanding of distributed and highly available applications
• General knowledge of IT systems and infrastructures

Other information

For behavioural competencies expected from ESA staff in general, please refer to the ESA Competency Framework.

If you require support with your application due to a disability, please email [email protected] .

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Please note that applications are only considered from nationals of one of the following States: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Nationals from Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Slovenia, as Associate Member States, or Canada as a Cooperating State, can apply as well as those from Bulgaria, Croatia and Cyprus as European Cooperating States (ECS).