Intern in the Electrical Department - AOCS and Pointing Architecture Section

Intern in the Electrical Department - AOCS and Pointing Architecture Section — The Attitude and Orbit Control System (AOCS) & Pointing Architecture Section provides functional support to ESA projects in the technical field of AOCS & pointing systems for ESA missions.

• Type of Appointment: Intern

Location
ESTEC, Noordwijk, Netherlands

Our team and mission

The Attitude and Orbit Control System (AOCS) & Pointing Architecture Section provides functional support to ESA projects in the technical field of AOCS & pointing systems for ESA missions on the following applicative directorates: Earth Observation, Science, Resilience, Navigation & Connectivity.
The AOCS & Pointing Architecture Section carries out technological research, harmonisation and standardisation in the field of AOCS and Pointing systems, with a focus on subsystem competitiveness, and innovation for performance, robustness and process improvements.

Field(s) of activity for the internship

As an intern in the AOCS & Pointing Architecture Section, you will develop an AOCS & pointing performance assessment tool and its time-domain simulator with a robust tuning pipeline to enable early mission feasibility assessment and architecture trade-offs.

The objectives are:

• to model and document the main performance drivers with focus on gyroless architectures and Star Tracker accommodation (including fusion of non-orthogonal Star tracker Optical Heads, dynamic-stellar estimator, and tachometer-stellar estimator);
• to consolidate the controller tuning optimisation (already implemented in the tool) with robust control synthesis & analysis for further optimised performance, with a generic design & tuning pipeline and the documentation of the process (including of the comparison with respect to the initial optimised tuning);
• to consolidate the architecture trade-off capacities (already implemented in the tool) by performing and documenting systematic performance evaluations over sets of Hardware suites (sensors and actuators) for architecture trade-offs, for different missions;
• to consolidate the early micro-vibrations impact assessment (already implemented in the tool) with improved Reaction Wheel disturbance spectrum (waterfall plots catalogue) & high frequency dynamics envelope and the documentation of the models & process (how to set the dynamics envelope without a full satellite Finite Element Model);
• to consolidate the verification & validation of the tool & simulator with built-in verification tests and documentation;
• to consolidate the tool & simulator documentation, with a user manual & hands-on training (setting of the tool, configuration for a new satellite mission, running early performance assessment and performing architecture trade-offs, controller optimised tuning, and running consolidated performance assessment with further improved robust tuning).

This updated version of our tool will be used for early definition of future Earth Observation and Science missions during the internship.

Behavioural competencies

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

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.

Knowledge and background in the following fields is an asset:

• sensors, actuators and dynamics modelling;
• robust control and performance;
• Matlab/Simulink and Python.

Eligibility

Applicants must be eligible to access information, technology, and hardware which is subject to European or US export control and sanctions regulations.

Nationality

Please note that applications are only considered from nationals of one of the following States: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.