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Science Operations Engineer for Herschel fm
2013-11-11 18:35:12| Space-careers.com Jobs RSS
About us SCISYS Deutschland GmbH provides professional engineering and consultancy services to spacecraft operators and spacecraft primes. Our team is composed of university graduates and experienced professionals, comprising some of the most knowledgeable, dedicated and talented engineers across Europe. Our services cover the whole life cycle of space programmes from early concepts to operations. Our Space Division provides a dynamic, supportive and friendly atmosphere in which you are encouraged to lead with initiative. We support new ideas from our colleagues and are focused on supporting space programmes and missions. We have a strong presence at ESOC and EUMETSAT, as well as serving other ESA sites, the German Space Operations Centre and the German Galileo Control Centre. Moreover, we actively manage your professional development, training and career progression. For our project near Madrid in Spain we are looking for a Science Operations Engineer for Herschel fm at ESAC. Tasks The Herschel Space Observatory was launched in May 2009. It performed astronomical photometry and spectroscopy in the far infrared and submillimetre 57670 micron wavelength range. Its scientific payload consisted of three instruments using a variety of detector technologies developed by Principal Investigator teams at various institutions, predominantly in Europe but with a significant contribution from the US. The majority of its observing time was provided to the general user community, via annual Calls for Proposals. Since May 2013, the Herschel spacecraft has had no liquid helium coolant remaining to allow the science instruments on board to operate, hence regular operations have ceased and the spacecraft has been placed into a nonreturning Solar orbit. In the ongoing postoperations phase, the Herschel Science Centre HSC, located at ESAC, is, inter alia, responsible for supporting data analysis improvements, oversight of the calibration and crosscalibration of the science instruments, and the generation of standard science products and their quality assessment as final Herschel archive products. All observational data has been systematically processed to generate these products that are distributed to the astronomical community via the Herschel Science Archive HSA, developed and maintained at ESAC. With the complete set of data from mission operations now in hand it is possible to further improve the calibration and data products in the archive. For this service, the incumbent is expected to perform the following tasks. The priorities of each task and the level to which they are performed will depend on the needs of the observatory plus the capabilities of the successful candidates to understand the general workings of the attitude and control system and how it relates to the accuracy of science products being produced in the standard processing of science instrument data from Herschel to become expert in understanding how the attitude and control operations were performed on board the spacecraft and how they may be improved upon in postprocessing on the ground with the aim of reducing photometric uncertainties in the analysed data to answer helpdesk questions on instrument and spacecraft operations and data products associated with the spacecraft to participate in assessing and updating calibration information and in particular pointing information and its use in the standard processing pipelines to develop procedures for improving pointing information for all instrument modes of operation to develop methods for handing special pointing problem cases to participate in acceptance testing of new software perform data quality checking of observations with problematic pointing issues The specific services include Helpdesk Interactions with Scientists Answering user tickets associated with spacecraft operations and instrument data processing Spacecraft Expertise Learn about the technical issues associated with the ACMS system and its effects on the quality of the Herschel science instrument data products Data processing Checks of software delivered to the data processing system for handling pointing improvements Development of further pointing improvements based on improved knowledge of the effects of the ACMS system during operations Acceptance testing of data processing capabilities that include pointing improvements for each software update every 612 months in post operations Provide reporting on postoperations pointing improvements and final attitude and jitter errors and overall spacecraft performance statistics Test that improvements are applicable to and improve the products of the various instrument modes of operation and report assessment of the improvement on science products based on pointing updates Quality control Perform checks of problematic observations and their associated data for feedback to users Essential Requirements The service to be provided requires the following qualification Masters University degree, PhD preferred, in AstronomyAstrophysics, Physics, or Engineering, or equivalent Relevant professional experience The selected contractor must be ready to operate in a team environment and be able to interact with the astronomical community around the world. Good interpersonal and communication skills are essential. The candidates should be comfortable in an international working environment and be fluent in English, one of the official languages of ESA. Additional Information The candidate must have a valid Spanish work and residence permit or be an EU Citizen Planned start date is 15.12.2013 To guarantee that your application is processed, please apply via our website httpwww.scisys.dewhereweworkspacecareersspacejobs.html
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herschel
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