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Earth Observation Scientist / Swarm Instruments Performance & Product Quality Expert

Please Note: The application deadline for this job has now passed.

Job Introduction

Serco is a specialist at delivering vital services on behalf of European, National and Local Governments.

Serco Europe employ’s a large workforce in Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Switzerland, Germany, Holland, Spain, Italy and the UK.

Our European operations have ca. 2,000 employees delivering critical services to public institutions throughout Europe. 

Serco’s space heritage over the last 40 years has placed us in the Space News Top 50 Space Industry Manufacturing and Services Companies - We work alongside EUMETSAT and the European Space Agency, where we are the largest on-site service provider with ca. 300 staff.

What connects the ever growing Serco workforce is a passion for delivering great service – To keep ahead we have to constantly evolve and enhance the way we deliver our services and everyone in Serco has a role to play here.

Serco provide the right environment to encourage ideas and a comprehensive Best Practice support network that enables them to put their ideas into action.

If you share our values then join with over 60,000 colleagues globally who are equally as passionate about delivering great service as you.

Role Responsibility

Overview:

Within the ESA Sensors Performance, Products and Algorithms (SPPA) Section the post-holder will be included in the Swarm Data Innovation and Science Cluster (DISC) contractual framework.

The post-holder will be supporting the data quality assessment of the Swarm different instruments, taken from a subset of:  Electric Field Instrument (EFI), composed by a Thermal Ion Imager (TII) and two Langmuir Probes (LP) and the magnetic field instruments, composed by an Absolute Scalar Magnetometer (ASM) and a Vector Field Magnetometer (VFM).

The required expertise shall be related to:

-  geomagnetic field and / or space plasma physics (magnetospheric and ionospheric physics, solar wind);

- the related instruments (Scalar and Vector Magnetometers, Langmuir probes, thermal ion imagers, electrostatic analysers);

- the algorithms and theory underneath the processing of data.

Expertise on related scientific research and also on the utilisation of ground based equipment for magnetic field measurements or plasma (both Incoherent and Coherent Scatter Radars, Ionosondes and Digisondes, All-Sky Cameras) would also be valuable.

Responsibilities:

The main activities will mainly consist in:

a) Performing product quality monitoring activities and provide Mission sensors scientific & technical support:

  • Operations of the Quality Control (QC) tools for systematic and on-request product quality analysis and reporting;
  • Define improvements of the QC tools as needed; 
  • Support in the QC tools software verification and validation;
  • Coordination for related data anomaly investigations and resolution;
  • Weekly/Cyclic Reports compilation;
  • Support to data reprocessing campaigns: dataset definition, analysis of reprocessed data;
  • Development of ad-hoc data analysis routines if needed.

b) Handling the technical communication on data quality towards the science users:

  • issuing of web notes/news about the mission, writing and updating dedicated web pages detailing the characteristics and quality of the Swarm products.

c) Support to Instrument Processing Facilities (IPF) operations, including:

  • Software maintenance and evolutions verification (plan definition, execution and reporting);
  • Anomaly investigation;
  • Support to IPF integration into reference and operational platforms;
  • Software configuration tuning.

d) If needed, support interfacing with:

  • external entities and other ESA interfaces (PDGS, PLSO, FOS);
  • other entities inside DISC;
  • general end users requests via ESA Earth Observation Help Desk.

e) Prepare scientific documentation / posters for workshops or conferences as agreed within the DISC and with ESA.

f) Support the preparation of periodic service reports on the activities performed.

Successful Candidate

• Science oriented education and background (aerospace/communications/plasma engineer, physics, astronomy...). In particular, a robust expertise in at least one of the following topics is required: space plasma physics (Sun-Earth interactions, solar wind, magnetospheric and ionospheric physics), plasma detectors (electrostatic analyzers, Ion Imagers, Langmuir probes), geomagnetic field.

Mandatory skills:

  • Programming skills: IDL or MatLab preferentially, other programming languages and scripting (Linux) for data manipulation / analysis automation purposes.
  • Very good interfacing capabilities towards external interfaces: customer, scientific and technical.
  • Proactive approach to problem identification and resolution.
  • Excellent organisation skills and ability to plan and report on proposed problem solutions and to work to deadline.
  • Candidates should be fluent in English and have good writing and communication skills.
  • Ability to work effectively in a team and autonomously
  • Availability to travel to attend meetings.

Additional assets:

  • Expertise in testing software, data flows and interfaces.
  • Experience of an ESA mission exploitation phases.
  • Low Earth Orbiting space missions concept (precise orbit determination and assessment, GPS signal processing, accelerometers data processing and analysis).
  • Experience on the products, algorithms and applications related to Swarm on-board instruments.
  • Good knowledge of ESA Standards.

Applicants must hold the correct documentation and permits to work in Italy.

 

Important

This is a provisional vacancy: we would like to identify a relevant candidate(s) to present to our client so they can confirm this opportunity.

If candidates with equally relevant experience are identified, preference will be given to candidates within "Categorie Protette (Law 68/99)" or registered in “lista di mobilità”.

Any offer of employment is contingent upon you providing documents to verify your identity and employment eligibility, as required by law.

Applicants are reminded that they will be requested to produce such documentation during the recruitment process.

Please contact a member of the recruitment team if you require further details of acceptable types of documentation required for verification of identity and work authorization. 

Data Protection:

When creating a profile on the Serco Career Centre you agreed to the Data Protection policy, a copy is available upon request.

You may submit a written request revoking your consent to this agreement at any time.

Package Description

This is a provisional vacancy: we would like to identify a relevant candidate(s) to present to our client so they can confirm this opportunity.

Full details on application.

About the Company

Serco SpA, part of the Serco group, A FTSE250, Multi-national Service Provider with over 50,000 employees worldwide.

Serco European Agencies

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