ESA Graduate Trainee in ESA Graduate Trainee in the Flight Software Section

Our team and mission

This post is placed in the Flight Software Section, a group of around 30 highly motivated experts in embedded software for space systems. They provide technical support for the development and functional verification & validation of the on-board software for all missions & satellites at ESA, e.g. space science, human and robotic exploration, Earth observation, telecommunications & integrated applications, navigation, space transportation, space engineering and technology, operations and space safety. The section is contributing to the success of ESA missions such as Rosetta, Galileo, Juice, Earth observation Sentinels missions, meteorological missions and many others.

The section is also responsible to define, initiate and manage technology research and development (R&D) activities in its field of expertise to ensure that future missions are using state-of-the-art technologies in an efficient way to guarantee the quality necessary for space systems and to enable increased functionality in a properly verified way (covering subjects such as SW verification and validation methods & processes, modern SW architectures & frameworks, new generation processors, Model Based Engineering, …).

The section also participates actively in standardisation activities, by influencing the evolution of the different applicable standards and by ensuring their proper application in ESA projects.

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

Field(s) of activity/research for the traineeship

As an ESA Graduate Trainee within the Flight Software Systems Section, you will participate in one or several of the following specific topics covered by the section:

• RISC-V in space - Porting and validation of SW building blocks: Processors based on the RISC-V architecture are gaining strong interest in the space domain with already ongoing developments for multi-core processors e.g. NOEL-V, GR765. Those processors will need to be supported by software ecosystems, i.e. software development environments, simulators as well as off-the-shelf available building blocks like operating systems, hypervisors and mathematical libraries. In this context, you will be contributing to the porting and validation of essential software building blocks for future space missions, using existing and to be developed tools, and the definition of any future activities in this domain.

• Verification & Validation of multicore based systems and Real-Time Operating Systems: The trend in embedded systems used in the space domain goes to the use of multicore processors. The introduction of this multicore architecture requires new verification and validation methods, as well as the use of particular real-time operating systems and hypervisors. Within this area, you will contribute to the definition of verification & validation activities targeting multicore systems, and also to the definition/modification/profiling of the SW architecture used on top of them (e.g. real-time operating systems & hypervisors).

• Flight Software Frameworks: There are several onboard software reference architectures available to support the implementation of the flight software on-board spacecrafts (e.g. OSRA, TASTE, F-prime, cFS, Outpost, …). You will participate in the evaluation, improvement, and porting across different hardware platforms of such frameworks.

• Novel SW V&V tools and methodologies: A large part of the time and resources spent developing software in the space domain is dedicated to its validation and verification. The increasing complexity of the software and hardware (new architectures, multicore processors, etc.) used in space requires to explore new ways and methods to validate and verify software. You will participate in the evaluation of tools for our verification & validation activities (e.g. by benchmarking different static analysis tools), and the evaluation of new methodologies (e.g. mutation testing, fuzz testing, metamorphic testing, etc.).

Learning objectives related to the traineeship are:

• To familiarise with hardware and software architectures used to implement the software on-board ESA’s spacecrafts;
• To familiarise with the SW development life cycle;
• To familiarise with the ECSS standards, in particular the ones in the software domain;
• To get an understanding on spacecraft systems engineering.

The candidates are encouraged to highlight the topic for which they have the most background in their cover letter.

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 computer science, electronics engineering, space systems engineering, telecommunications or related discipline.

Additional requirements

• Knowledge and background in real-time embedded software development, real-time operating systems (e.g. RTEMS), Time and Space Partitioning (TSP) and RISC-V instruction set architecture and associated tool chains are an asset.
• Knowledge of real-time embedded software development, real-time operating systems (e.g. RTEMS, VxWorks, real-time Linux, …), Time and Space Partitioning (TSP) is considered an asset.
• Knowledge of SW verification & validations tools and methodologies is considered an asset.

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