Intern in the Space Medicine Team, Data Integration

Our team and mission

Based at the European Astronaut Centre (EAC), ESA’s Space Medicine Team (SMT) comprises medical doctors, biomedical engineers, exercise physiologists, psychologists, IT specialists, administrators and project managers. Each plays a vital role in ensuring the health and well-being of astronauts during all stages of a mission.

To better support astronauts during current missions to the International Space Station and prepare for human missions beyond low Earth orbit, the Space Medicine Team is working to identify, evaluate and develop new space technologies and procedures. This process involves collaborating with ESA’s technology teams and Human Research Office to identify existing space-relevant technologies and scientific knowledge and looking outside of ESA at terrestrial technology developments and the wealth of current science knowledge concerning human health. The Space Medicine Team work in close partnership with national space agencies, industry, research institutions and universities from across ESA’s Member States.

For further information on space medicine internships, please follow this link

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

Field(s) of activity for the internship

Topic of the internship: Data Integration and API validation

The Space Medicine Team (HRE-HM) within the directorate of Human and Robotic Exploration directorate, is mandated to care for ESA Astronaut’s health and wellbeing during their entire career.  In execution of this task, SMT performs numerous medical tests and evaluations to monitor Astronauts’ health that are collected into ESA Astronaut Medical Database (AMD). SMT is responsible for the maintenance, quality assurance, and evolution of the AMD. To enhance our analytical capabilities, SMT is currently setting up an additional SQL Server environment that will serve as a sandbox for testing data analytics tools. This environment will allow to safely explore new technologies without impacting the production database.

As part of the SMT, under the supervision of the Administration and Coordination Lead, the primary objectives of the internship will be to:

• Test the available APIs for retrieving data from the database;
• Design and document data retrieval processes;
• Verify the accuracy and consistency of the retrieved data.

You will be responsible for the following tasks:

• Test Planning and Execution:
  
  • Develop test cases for various data import scenarios;
  • Execute test cases to verify data accuracy, completeness, and formatting after import.

• Validation and Quality Assurance:
  
  • Identify data anomalies, inconsistencies, or transformation errors;
  • Compare source data against imported data to ensure accuracy and completeness;
  • Automate validation procedures, where feasible.

• Documentation:
  
  • Maintain detailed documentation of test results, issues found, and resolutions;
  • Document the data import process, including tools used and data mapping rules.

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 in your final or second-to-last year of a university course at Master’s level and you need to remain 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 Member State language would be an asset.

You should pursue a master’s degree in data science, information technology, computer science or related disciplines.

Skills Required:

• Knowledge of SQL and Microsoft SQL server;
• Understanding of relational database architecture;
• Knowledge of Postman (API platform to build and manipulate API);
• Basic scripting knowledge is a plus;
• Attention to detail and a structured approach to problem solving.