Our team and mission

Our team is responsible for Failure Detection, Isolation and Recovery. We support the development of space missions throughout their lifecycle, from early concept studies to operations, with a particular focus on fault management, system autonomy, mission robustness and operational safety.

The team contributes to the continuous improvement of engineering practices across ESA missions by capturing lessons learned from past and ongoing programmes and by supporting the evolution of engineering handbooks, methods and tools. In particular, we contribute to the development of Failure Detection, Isolation and Recovery methodologies and associated engineering toolchains used to improve mission availability, fault tolerance and operational efficiency.

You will work in a multidisciplinary environment involving systems engineering, reliability, software, operations and mission analysis. You will have the opportunity to analyse real mission operational data and spacecraft anomaly reports, identify recurring patterns and engineering lessons, and contribute to the development of future Failure Detection, Isolation and Recovery concepts and monitoring approaches for ESA missions.

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

Field(s) of activity for the internship

During your internship, you will contribute to the analysis of spacecraft operational history from multiple ESA missions with the objective of extracting actionable lessons learned for future mission designs.

Your activities may include:

• analysing spacecraft anomaly reports, operational events and mission databases from multiple missions;
• identifying failures, false positives, nuisance alarms and operational workarounds associated with Failure Detection, Isolation and Recovery functions;
• assessing the effectiveness of monitoring strategies, recovery actions and autonomous fault management concepts;
• identifying recurring weaknesses, missing observability, excessive complexity or design shortcomings in monitoring and recovery architectures;
• collecting evidence-based lessons learned and mapping them to engineering recommendations for future missions;
• supporting the development and maintenance of a structured database of spacecraft monitors, recovery actions and operational experience;
• contributing to the evolution of engineering tools supporting Failure Detection, Isolation and Recovery design and analysis;
• supporting the consolidation of traceability between anomaly reports, failure modes, monitoring mechanisms and recovery concepts;
• contributing to updates of the ESA SAVOIR FDIR Handbook and associated lessons learned repositories;
• supporting comparative analyses across missions to identify common fault management patterns and best practices;
• participating in technical discussions with system, reliability and operations engineers.

Through this work you will gain practical experience in spacecraft systems engineering, mission operations, fault management, engineering data analysis and knowledge management for complex space systems. 

The internship offers a unique opportunity to work with real operational experience from spacecraft missions and contribute directly to improving the robustness and autonomy of future ESA missions.

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.

Knowledge and background in one or more of the following areas is an asset:

• spacecraft systems engineering;
• Failure Detection, Isolation and Recovery concepts;
• mission operations or spacecraft operations;
• data analysis and large dataset processing;
• aerospace engineering, electrical engineering, computer engineering or a related discipline;
• experience with Python, databases or data analytics tools;
• ability to analyse technical documentation and derive engineering conclusions;
• interest in lessons learned, knowledge management and continuous improvement processes;
• strong analytical and structured thinking skills;
• ability to communicate technical findings clearly in written reports and presentations.