Noordwijk, Netherlands
Internship Explorer
Internship Explorer
Contribute to ESA's microwave laboratories and develop RF technologies for space. You will have the opportunity to work in shaping the future of the ESA’s Microwave laboratories and prepare them to test and research novel state-of-the-art technologies. You will also have a high degree of exposure to our ESA Projects, ESA experts, Industrial partners and European Research Institutes. A perfect set-up! Depending on your background and interest, you will be appointed to work on one of the following two areas of work: 1) Time and Frequency technologies and testing activities: Several space missions require nowadays high-performance frequency stability sources and synchronization capabilities. You have the unique opportunity to work within ESA’s Time and Frequency working group on both Ground and Space segments, as well as satellite system concepts. You will work in a specialized testing facility, focusing on: Space atomic clock long-term testing and characterization, investigations on the atomic clock physics behaviour, nanosecond-accurate timescale generation and monitoring, contributing to the generation of worldwide Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), operation and maintenance of Ground atomic clocks and innovative time and frequency transfer techniques. Furthermore, you will have the opportunity to support development of new testing setups and capabilities to keep the state-of-the-art of the laboratory, such as: thermal-vacuum testing of miniaturized atomic clocks, AI/ML techniques for advanced atomic clocks anomaly detection or high performance optical/RF time and frequency transfer. 2) Long-term Investigation Facility for RF Active equipment and technologies: High-performance applications are increasingly adopting III-V devices (especially GaN) to achieve higher power, frequency, and linearity. Such semiconductor compound requires specific burn-in and stabilisation process to ensure long term reliability and a stable output power over time. To support this trend, the Graduate Trainee will actively contribute to the development and operation of this specialised facility. This position will involve hands-on activities such as setting up and running RF burn-in and stabilisation experiments, integrating test benches, and monitoring device performance under stress conditions. The EGT will also assist with data collection, postprocessing and analysis, helping refining test procedures for space-grade reliability. Time permitting, the trainee will also be involved in the research of analog and hybrid beamforming for phased array applications. This will cover assessment and testing of diverse analog beamforming solutions (test boards with beamforming RFICs) from ESA contracts and development of beamforming test bed that will serve as an evaluation platform for projects.
