Young Graduate Trainee in ROSE-L End-to-End Simulator Development

Young Graduate Opportunity in the Directorate of Earth Observation Programmes

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.

This post is classified F1 on the Coordinated Organisations’ salary scale .

Location

ESTEC, Noordwijk, Netherlands 

ROSE-L (Radar Observing System for Europe at L-band) is the 12th Copernicus Sentinel mission and the 6th Copernicus Expansion mission.

It embarks a state-of-the-art L-Band SAR instrument capable to provide additional information that cannot be gathered by other means, benefiting a variety of services and applications.

In particular, the mission will contribute to:

• The safety of European Citizens by greatly extending the monitoring of geohazards linked with surface motion
• The European Arctic policy by providing new information of sea ice types and detection of icebergs
• Forestry and biodiversity by providing continuous high-resolution monitoring of changes in global forest carbon stocks
• Agriculture and food security by providing reliable high-resolution soil moisture information
• EU Water Framework Directive through mapping of water availability and water use particularly for agriculture
• Climate change policy through the enhanced monitoring of glaciers and ice sheets, forest carbon stocks and changes with time and water availability
• The European Union Integrated Maritime Policy by extending the capacity to monitor our marine ecosystem and by increasing our maritime surveillance abilities.

The project is currently in the detailed design phase (phase C) with the System Critical Design Review planned at the end of 2024 / beginning 2025.

The mission is composed by 2 satellites in Low Earth Orbit, the first of which is planned to be launched in 2028.

The prime contractor is Thales Alenia Space – Italy, whilst the L-band radar is developed by Astrium Defence and Space Germany and UK.

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

As YGT in the ROSE-L End-to-End Simulator (E2ES) development area, you will first familiarise with the mission scope and requirements and with the system architecture design, challenges and technical solutions. Then, you will deepen your knowledge on the overall ROSE-L E2ES, one of the most important components of the mission, capable to simulate and fully represent the entire end-to-end system behaviour. Indeed, the E2ES generates a set of representative scenes observed by the ROSE-L radar, simulates the SAR observing system, processes the SAR data and evaluates the end-to-end performances. The E2ES is a powerful tool, embedding the ROSE-L Ground Prototype Processor (GPP), used across the entire mission lifetime (from development to commissioning phase) to evaluate the system end-to-end performances and validate the system design.

During your training period you will mainly focus on the E2ES aspects related to the simulation of the SAR observing system. This will first allow you to learn how the complex, state of the art, ROSE-L Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) machinery works in detail. Then, you will experience how, based on a simulated observing scene, the entire SAR instrument data generation is simulated in the E2ES, including signal echoes, noise echoes, internal calibration, calibration echoes, etc.. Furthermore, you will learn how the E2ES is designed and coded to simulate and fully represent all the numerous SAR instrument characteristics and operations including HW, SW/on-board processing, Antenna Model, etc..

You will deepen your knowledge on the specifics of the GPP software, learning the most advanced and suitable techniques to process L-band SAR instrument data to create both Level-0 and Level-1 products.

During your training you will interface with the ROSE-L system team at ESTEC but also with the industrial team. This will give you a broad overview on how the European Space Agency is organised and the work that the Agency carries out in liaison with the European industries.

Finally, during your training period, the ROSE-L system will undergo the System Critical Design Review (S- CDR), one of the major reviews of a mission. Your participation to the S-CDR will allow you to gain a unique insight on a broad range of technical aspects as well as on how major reviews are organised and conducted at ESA.

Furthermore to all the technical and organisational aspects mentioned above, you will also have the chance to learn or to strengthen your relationship and management capabilities by interfacing with several parties and teams involved in the ROSE-L mission.

Knowledge of relevant technical domains

Relevant experience gained during internships/project work

Breadth of exposure coming from past and/or current research/activities

Knowledge of ESA and its programmes/projects

Result Orientation

Operational Efficiency

Fostering Cooperation

Relationship Management

Continuous Improvement

Forward Thinking

You should have just completed, or be in the final year of your Master’ s degree in Engineering

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.

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 motivation and overall professional perspective/career goals will also be explored.

Other information

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

For further information on the Young Graduate Programme please visit: Young Graduate Programme andFAQ Young Graduate Programme

At the Agency we value diversity and we welcome people with disabilities. Whenever possible, we seek to accommodate individuals with disabilities by providing the necessary support at the workplace. The Human Resources Department can also provide assistance during the recruitment process. If you would like to discuss this further please contact us 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).

According to the ESA Convention, the recruitment of staff must take into account an adequate distribution of posts among nationals of the ESA Member States*. When short-listing for an interview, priority will first be given to candidates from under-represented Member States *. 

In accordance with the European Space Agency’s security procedures and as part of the selection process, successful candidates will be required to undergo basic screening before appointment conducted by an external background screening service. 

*Member States, Associate Members or Cooperating States.