Our team and mission

The Directorate of Human and Robotic Exploration is the main ESA entity in charge of supporting the current and future endeavours in the domain of human spaceflight. Space exploration plays a strategic part in securing a central role for Europe with respect to global initiatives. The European Exploration Envelope Programme (E3P) integrates ESA's activities in the field into a single exploration process. The strategy encompasses three destinations where humans will work with robots to gather knowledge: low earth orbit (LEO), the Moon and Mars.

The Spaceship EAC initiative investigates low Technology Readiness Level (TRL) technologies that may support future exploration space missions as well as surface activities on the Moon. It is driven by the ExPeRT (Exploration Preparation, Research and Technology) team, a multidisciplinary, innovation-driven group of researchers, graduate and undergraduate students based at the ESA European Astronaut Centre (EAC). The mission statement of Spaceship EAC is centred on three main pillars: enhance, enable and inspire. Its founding idea is to enhance the capabilities of EAC by drawing on the Centre's experience in spaceflight to develop and validate new operational concepts and valuable technologies in support of human and robotic lunar exploration scenarios.

At EAC, a number of precursor robotic activities have been pursued, such as Meteron, MARVIN, SUPVIS-M and ANALOG-1, to build up practical experience in surface robotics, teleoperation, autonomy and end-to-end mission operations in analogue conditions. As exploration evolves from ISS-centric operations towards future lunar surface missions, EAC is expanding its ability to host robotic systems and lander-related operational concepts that will underpin those missions. To that end, the joint ESA–DLR LUNA facility has been established to provide a representative lunar analogue environment where technologies and surface robotic systems can be matured through iterative test campaigns. The campaigns include mobility and navigation on regolith, surface operations and logistics, payload/lander interfaces, deployment and commissioning sequences, communication and supervision concepts, and system robustness under realistic operational constraints. LUNA serves as a central hub for lunar exploration preparation at ESA and DLR, featuring a lunar surface testbed of approximately 700 m² to support technology demonstrations, future training and operational validation for Moon exploration.

In the role, developing a general robotics capability based on commercial off the shelf (COTS) elements for the LUNA facility is envisaged. Such a capability would support general test payloads, as well as locomotion, positioning and remote teleoperation across multiple sites. It is envisaged that the role will support the activities of the Spaceship Initiatives project and the ongoing development of LUNA around this theme.

For more information on Spaceship EAC and some of its work, see the Spaceship EAC blog ( Spaceship EAC – ESA – Exploration)

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

Field(s) of activity/research for the traineeship

As a National Graduate Trainee, you will have the opportunity to:

• support the Spaceship and LUNA teams in developing cobotics testing capability at the LUNA facility, specifically:
  • working on advancing Spaceship and ESA robotics projects that can be brought into and deployed at LUNA;
  • where possible, reusing and enhancing existing project infrastructure to support LUNA;
• convert operational experience gained working on the robotics platform into robust documentation, to support end users within ESA and external parties;
• use best-known industry standards to enhance the project, taking into account requirements and constraints such as scope, budget and location;
• support selected LUNA campaign and testing activities focused on robotics with respect to planning, execution and documentation;
• support the Spaceship Initiatives project and activities within the centre and at the other Spaceship locations in the UK, Poland and France;
• liaise with the management team on related robotics activities within the team, via meetings and discussions;
• explore educational and outreach possibilities for cobotics at the LUNA facility.

Technical competencies

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 should have just completed, or be in the final year of your master’ s degree in a relevant scientific or technical discipline.

Additional requirements

You should have good interpersonal and communication skills and be able to work in a multicultural environment, both independently and as part of a team. Previous experience of working in international teams may be considered an asset. Your motivation, overall professional prospects and career goals will also be explored during the later stages of the selection process.

You should also have knowledge and a background in the areas of robotics, mechanical engineering and software/systems engineering. Experience with analogue experiments, relevant work at ground based testing facilities or payload development would also be considered relevant.