Mission Analysis Engineer for ESOC

DEIMOS is performing an advanced recruitment for a Mission Analysis candidate to be located at ESOC (Darmstadt, Germany) as part of a Flight Dynamics Operations Engineering service for Mission Design.

The service will be provided to the Mission Analysis Section in ESOC, which plays a major role for future terrestrial, lunar, minor-body and interplanetary missions, as well as scientific missions to other planets or missions in Libration Points. The emphasis is on trajectory optimisation and attitude-related aspects, and on providing solutions for the spacecraft itself, the ground segment design and operations preparations. Mission analysis is performed with the aid of advanced methods in celestial mechanics, applied mathematics and control and estimation theory

As a matter of reference, the work of the Deimos Mission Analysis team is oriented to supporting the design of space missions from a mission engineering point of view, design software tools for mission analysis studies and do research in celestial mechanics and astrodynamics.

As a matter of reference, current DEIMOS activities comprise:

• Interplanetary missions (planets, astronomy, minor bodies, etc.)
• Earth observation and lunar missions
• SW Development
• Planetary Defence
• Formation flying
• Autonomous in-orbit rendezvous
• Space transportation systems and re-entry vehicles
• Planetary entry, descent and landing

Main Duties:

The general activities to be supported by the service to ESA are:

• Performing mission analysis activities in support of projects and mission studies including interplanetary missions, planetary defense (i.e. NEO impacts), as well as lunar and libration point missions.
• Orbit manoeuvre optimization, including low thrust.
• Perform navigation and guidance studies for Mission Analysis
• Participate in concurrent design studies for space missions
• Developing and maintaining generic mission analysis tools
• Participating in developing generic flight dynamics software
• Support to project, scientists and industry, participation in reviews General Flight Dynamics operations engineering activities

Education:

Required: postgraduate studies (e.g. M.Sc.) in aerospace engineering, physics or mathematics. PhD in aerospace engineering.

Professional Experience:

• At least 3 years of relevant experience in the space sector
• Strong technical background in astrodynamics, orbital mechanics, and mission analysis

Technical Requirements:

Essential experience:

• Interplanetary mission analysis and planetary defense (i.e. NEO impacts).
• Programming skills in C++, Python

Knowledge of is required for the post:

• Trajectory Optimisation for lunar, liberation point and interplanetary transfers and the science phases.
• Navigation and Guidance including Optical Navigation for Mission Analysis.
• Low thrust trajectory optimization, propagation, and analysis.
• Local and global optimization applications.
• Launcher ascent or lander descent optimization.
• Concurrent design studies for space missions.
• Flight Dynamics Infrastructure Software and Mission Analysis Tools Development.
• Analytical, semi-analytical and numerical integration techniques.
• Modelling and simulation of space systems, including space environment and space vehicle dynamics
• Orbital perturbations, covariance and Monte-Carlo analysis, reference orbit creation, orbit optimization, etc.
• Experience with modern software development tools: Git, CI/CD, CMake, docker.
• Familiarity with parallel computation techniques: OpenMP, MPI and CUDA.
• Technical support to project, scientists and industry, participation in reviews.
• Experience with Linux, network services and protocols.

Nice to have:

• Familiarity with the ESOC environment
• Familiarity/experience with Flight Dynamics operations engineering tasks
• Satellite models and characteristics relevant for Astrodynamics: AOCS (sensors, actuators, manoeuvre
• Experience dealing with external interfaces.

Language Skills:

Notable level of English, spoken and written.

Personal Skills:

• High motivation.
• Initiative and autonomy to solve complex problems.
• Responsibility towards teammates.
• Ability to multi-task efficiently; working on multiple activities, multiple subsystems and if applicable multiple missions simultaneously
• Willing to work in groups, fostering collaboration.
• Forward Thinking

 

Ref.: HRRECRUIT-735