Intern in the Materials, Environments and Contamination Control Section

Our team and mission

This position is based at the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) - Noordwijk, Netherlands

The Materials, Environments and Contamination Control Section (TEC-MSE) provides expert engineering support to ESA projects, carries out technological research and implements laboratory testing activities focused on the environmental survivability  of materials and cleanliness and contamination control engineering throughout all mission phases, from requirements definition in early project phases, instrument /satellite development, on-ground assembly integration and test, including launch campaign support and the in-orbit induced contamination environment. This includes expertise in areas such as atomic oxygen degradation, UV and laser induced contamination, planetary dust contamination, radiation and charging,  stray light and plume impingement effects, on-ground contamination, and other synergistic environmental and contamination effects. The section also provides materials and processes support for flight safety, including expertise related to habitable/pressurised environments, materials off gassing and toxicity analysis and purge gas analysis.  The experts in the section have a strong focus on space hardware, laboratory capabilities, development of innovative environmental testing facilities and non-standard testing techniques, including flight experiments/in-orbit demonstration, as well as associated modelling related to non-metallic materials, in-orbit contamination and environmental effects.

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

Field(s) of activity for the internship

Topic of the internship: Advanced techniques for spacecraft cleanliness and contamination control

Spacecraft, payloads and instruments contain multiple contamination sensitive surfaces (think about mirrors, lenses, detectors, solar cells, radiators), which can be degraded in performance due to both ground based contamination and in-orbit contamination (particle and molecular).  During your internship, you will have the opportunity to be work on a number of different projects related to spacecraft cleanliness and contamination control, and your work will be used to give guidance for project applications for future missions : 

• Evaluation of novel experimental techniques used to monitor the particle contamination deposition on flight hardware in clean rooms. You will compare the performance of several  in-situ real-time systems and investigate alternative sampling methods;
• Assessment of advanced packaging materials used to ensure that hardware is not contaminated on-ground during spacecraft assembly, integration and test. You will investigate different properties of the materials such as outgassing, offgassing, particulate shedding and molecular contamination transfer, chemical composition;
• Investigation of the efficiency of bakeout processes for flight hardware, in particular to understand the limitations for venting hole design for glued optical systems, cavities with paints and decontamination of cryogenic surfaces in cavities. You will use advanced manufacturing techniques e.g. (3D printing) to design and manufacture new cavity configurations with venting holes. 

Your work will include :

• Literature research and critical review of requirements and experimental methods;
• Definition of an experimental test plan;
• Implementation of an experimental test campaign;
• Compilation of results, reporting and definition of future recommendations and guidelines.   

You will gain experience working in an international team environment and you will use the world leading experimental facilities of the ESA/ESTEC Materials and Electrical Components Laboratory, in order to perform advanced testing and characterisation. This will include the use of a variety of different laboratory methods and equipment such as monitoring systems for particle contamination, optical microscopy, particle fall-out photometer, liquid particle counter, fourier transform spectroscopy for molecular contamination evaluation, materials offgassing facility, gas chromatography/mass spectrometry analysis, as well as utilizing various vacuum environmental testing facilities and 3D printing manufacturing equipment.

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.

Knowledge and background in materials, physics and chemistry or vacuum technologies would be considered an asset. All of the projects will have a significant experimental content, and so a strong motivation to work in a laboratory environment is required.