Under the direct authority of the Head of the Mission Operations Department, the Head of the Ground Facilities Operations Division manages, operates, and maintains the Telemetry, Tracking, and Command (TT&C) stations of the ESA tracking station network ( ESTRACK), ensures its integrity, and interfaces with other operational entities for the provision of non- ESA TT&C station support. The Head of the Division specifies the user requirements for all ground facilities in support of missions and validates all related equipment before operational use. The Head of Division is responsible for the management, operation, and maintenance of the Operations Control Centre facilities at ESOC, and for providing station and network support to other agencies and external customers as required.

Field(s) of activity for the internship

You can choose between the following topics:

1) Topic 1: In the context of the ESA Special Mission Infrastructure Lab Environment. (https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Operations/Want_to_SMILE). the backend of an amateur station should be migrated to an amateur station located in Kiruna Sweden in a performance oriented way.  

2) Topic 2: In the context of the ESA Special Mission Infrastructure Lab Environment. (https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Operations/Want_to_SMILE). it shall be investigated if it is possible to add VHF to ESOC-2 SMILE station.

3) Topic 3: In the context of the ESA Special Mission Infrastructure Lab Environment. (https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Operations/Want_to_SMILE). GNU radio flowgraphs for UHF Satellite uplink and encoding should be developed in a performance-oriented way. The flowgraphs should be configurable for various missions and provide data interfaces to the users.

Furthermore, the performance and possible improvements should be investigated. This should be an enhancement to an internship held in 2024 for UHF reception and decoding.

Required Qualifications 

You must be a university student, preferably in your final or second-to-last year of a university course at the Master’s level and you need to remain 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 Member State language would be an asset.

Python Knowledge

Signal Processing Knowledge in the digital domain

Knowledge of GNU Radio is an asset

A Radio Amateur Certificate is an asset