To support the Herschel Science Centre (HSC) of ESA’s Science and Robotics Exploration Directorate (D/SRE) at ESAC we are looking for: Mission Planning Support for Herschel

The HSC is responsible for all observatory aspects of the mission, including the long- term observing programme (via Announcements of Opportunity), daily generation of observation schedules, overall provision of support and information to the user community, instrument cross-calibration, data product generation, distribution and archiving. Within the HSC, the Community Support Group runs the scientific mission planning and proposal handling systems, operates the Helpdesk and makes information available via the WWW.

Key Tasks and Responsibilities:

The candidate will primarily provide technical assistance to operating the scientific mission planning system as his/her main daily task and will provide backup support to information dissemination on the HSC web site. The candidate will specialise in these particular operational duties, but might also be requested to provide support for other duties listed below, depending on the mission operational phase and the evolving workload of each particular task.

The primary specific duties:

-   Mission planning:

• Performing scientific mission planning, operating the existing software on a daily basis, occasionally in weekend shifts, and occasionally being on-call for critical activities outside of normal working hours,
• Ensuring execution of observations with special constraints,
• Testing new versions of the mission planning software.

-   HSC web:

• Placing information notes on the WWW,
• Maintaining the Herschel WWW site according to the departmental standards.

Secondary duties:

-   Helpdesk:

• Operating the HSC helpdesk system,
• Handling the first level questions from the community,
• Sending information and mailing to the user community.

-   Proposal Handling:

• Processing submitted proposals through the proposal handling system,
• Providing statistical information and reports as required,
• Maintaining the databases containing observer and proposal information,
• Maintaining the database governing access rights to proposals and observations,
• Tracking the execution of observations with special constraints,
• Providing support in resolving issues related to duplicated observations,
• Resolving problems in proposals with observers through helpdesk,
• Testing new versions of the proposal handling software.

He/She will report to the Head of the Community Support Group at the HSC.

Skills and Experience:

• University degree in a scientific discipline (preferably in astronomy), or equivalent;
• Experience in the science operations of space-based observatories will be an advantage;
• Experience interacting with the scientific community and using databases (especially object-oriented) and handling database queries will be an asset;
• Good interpersonal and communication skills;
• Experience in a communication environment would be an asset;
• Fluent in English; knowledge of another ESA member state language is an asset;

Starting date: September 2010 or as soon as possible thereafter

An exciting international working environment in a highly innovative and motivated team awaits you!

HE Space Operations is an international human resources company specialised in the space market. We have been providing consultancy services in space engineering and business administration for over 25 years. We generally work directly on-site with our principal customers such as the European Space Agency and EADS Astrium.