Instrument Specialist

Location: Frascati

Introduction  Serco is a trusted leader in Space Services, with a proud history spanning over 55 years and a track record of supporting more than 50 space missions for world-renowned agencies like ESA and NASA. Our expertise covers the entire space lifecycle - from satellite testing and launch services to spacecraft operations, space surveillance, and data management - making us a key partner in advancing national strategies and driving innovation in the New Space era.
The position holder will work within the contractual framework of the Swarm Data Innovation and Science Cluster (DISC), supporting our client, the European Space Agency (ESA).The role is based at ESA’s Earth Observation centre, ESRIN, in Frascati, Italy, with partial teleworking options available.

The ESA Swarm mission, launched in November 2013, uses a constellation of three identical satellites to provide survey of Earth's magnetic field, its evolution, and the atmosphere's electrical environment. The mission aims to understand the Earth magnetic field's origin, monitor its changes, to analyse ionospheric plasma parameters and electric fields, and to monitor space weather events.

The post-holder will be supporting the data quality assessment of the Swarm different instruments, taken from a subset of: magnetic field instruments, composed by an Absolute Scalar Magnetometer (ASM) and a Vector Field Magnetometer (VFM) and Electric Field Instrument (EFI), composed by a Thermal Ion Imager (TII) and two Langmuir Probes (LP) and of Swarm higher level geophysical products, e.g. Level 2 and advanced products.
The main activities will be:
Performing product quality monitoring activities and provide Mission sensors technical support:
Operations of the Quality Control (QC) tools for systematic and on-request product quality analysis and reporting.
Support to data reprocessing campaigns: dataset definition, analysis of reprocessed data.
Support the Swarm Instruments Performance and Product Quality Expert, the ESA Post Launch Support Office (PLSO) and the ESA Flight Operation Segment (FOS) on sensor and data anomaly investigations and resolution.
Support in the QC tools software verification and validation.
Maintenance and development of ad-hoc data analysis routines
Weekly/Cyclic Reports compilation.
Support answering general end users requests via ESA Earth Observation Help Desk.
Support to Instrument Processing Facilities (IPF), including:
Support implementation and validation of data processing algorithms
IPF verification (plan definition, execution and reporting)
IPF Anomaly investigation
Support to IPF transfer to operations
Participate to technical coordination meetings with the Payload Data Ground Segment (PDGS) and DISC teams.

Prepare scientific documentation / posters for workshops or conferences as agreed within the DISC and with ESA.
Support the preparation of periodic service reports on the activities performed and reporting to line manager.
Participation at meetings with ESA, DISC partners, Cal/Val community for mission status, instruments performances, data and processors evolutions.
Applicants shall have a high level of self-motivation, the capability to work effectively in a team and autonomously, and have good organisation skills. A strong proactive attitude is required in identifying problems and proposing solutions.
Requirements   Strong teaming attitude
Very good interfacing capabilities towards external interfaces: customer, scientific and technical
Proactive approach to problem identification and resolution.
Ability to plan and report on proposed problem solutions and to work to deadline.
Availability to travel to attend meetings.
In addition, the candidate should have   Attitude to follow guidelines and to require minimum supervision, proactively requesting help when needed.
Ability to follow different concurrent activities.
Attitude to be propositive in suggesting new opportunities of research or solutions leading to scientific improvements of satellite data quality.
Mandatory knowledge and experience   University Master degree, in physics, mathematics, engineering , data science or a related discipline.
Fluent in English (equivalent B2 or…