Intern in The Space Weather Office of The Space Safety Programme

Intern in the Space Weather Office of the Space Safety Programme- **Job Requisition ID**:19958- **Date Posted**:1 November 2025- **Closing Date**:30 November 2025 23:59 CET/CEST- **Publication**:External Only- **Type of Contract**:Intern- **Directorate**:Operations- **Workplace**:Darmstadt, DE**Location**
ESOC, Darmstadt, Germany
** Our team and mission**-
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- The ESA Space Safety Programme Office takes care of all potential hazards from space or in space, which can impact human activities on Earth or again in space. The spectrum of tasks ranges from gathering the basic understanding of space hazards originating from our Sun, from man-made space debris, or from asteroids potentially colliding with the Earth. It also addresses basic approaches to mitigate these hazards and to implement space systems end-to-end in a sustainable and eco-compatible way. Moreover, several corner stone missions are underway to demonstrate basic methods of space weather forecasting, asteroid deflection and active space debris removal from orbit.
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- In execution of these tasks, the Space Safety Office has the following entities:

- space Weather Office (OPS-SW).
- planetary Defence Office (OPS-SP).
- space Debris Office (OPS-SD).
- clean Space Office (OPS-SC).
- frequency Management Office (OPS-SF).
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- Space Weather Office is responsible for developing the ESA Space Weather System that allow nowcasting and forecasting space weather, i.e., the enormous eruptions in the Sun that impact the environment everywhere in our solar system. When these eruptions hit the Earth, they can cause major damage in the infrastructure on the surface, damage satellites and endanger the health of the astronauts in space. Geomagnetic storms triggered by the solar events can cause blackouts in power grids, disturb satellite navigation and communication, disturb aviation, transport, and many other functions that we are used to in our daily life. Energetic particles from the solar events can also damage space probes that we have sent to other planets in the solar system. This is why Space Weather Office is developing space weather forecasting capability for other planets like Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter. Space Weather Office is also responsible for development and implementation of the satellite missions for space weather monitoring to make the space weather services to the users possible.

** Field(s) of activity for the internship**-
-** You can choose between the following topics**:
-** Topic 1: Mission performance simulations for upcoming Space Weather missions**-ESA is developing an enhanced Space Weather Sensor System to provide data for forecasting and to monitor Space Weather effects. Due to the to the asymmetry and complexity of Earth's magnetosphere, the involved particle environment and its dynamics, it is necessary to capture the state of the magnetic field and the particle distribution in a sufficiently large number of sampling points around the Earth, such that it allows state-monitoring and modelling of the involved processes with sufficient accuracy and timeliness. An important aspect for the realisation of observation systems for Space Safety is the need of high reliability, sufficiently long lifetime and low data latencies as the data will be used in operational purposes.-For this, ESA is currently implementing and studying multiple dedicated Space Weather missions, from nanosatellite to small satellites, that will be flying in a wide range of orbits. Your role would be to contribute to the analysis of their mission performances, through the use of different Space Weather models, instrument data and mission analysis tools. These analyses will provide insight into the optimisation of the mission design and operations concept, and will support the Space Weather team in guiding ongoing industry developments. You will get a chance to look into the different steps of an ESA space mission, from early study to mission implementation and management of flying missions.-
** Topic 2: Instrument Performance Modelling for Aurora-D and Other SmallSat Missions**-
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- The ESA Space Weather Office space segment team is implementing the Aurora-D (demonstrator) mission and studying multiple other small satellite concepts with optical and in-situ payloads. To support the definition of requirements, the verification of performance, the completion of various trade-offs and the assessment of the impact of changes, the team is developing instrument performance models and various tools to support the mission development and to prepare mission end-to-end simulator developments.

** 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 studying at master’s level. In addition, you must be able to prove that you w