Planetary Scientist : ExoMars TGO and Hera missions

Career Opportunities:
Planetary Scientist :
Exo Mars TGO and Hera missions (2787)

Requisition
2787
-Posted - Location (1) - Country (1) - Job Function (1)

A new part-time opportunity for a planetary scientist to work for Telespazio UK, on-site at ESA-ESAC (Spain) providing support to ESA’s Exo Mars TGO and Hera missions.

Responsibilities / Duties

A planetary scientist is required to join the support archive scientists’ team at ESAC to support the Exo Mars TGO and Hera missions. For Hera especially this will involve working closely with the mission PI teams to aid them in producing PDS4 compliant data which adheres to the PSA standards and conventions. Currently Hera data is not yet archived in the PSA so the role will also involve working with the PSA development team to design the Hera archive and the Hera data structures along with the production of PDS4 dictionaries and context products for the mission.

A key feature of the role will be to disseminate information about the new Hera archive to the community via conferences and other outreach.

In addition to these specialist areas the successful candidate will also participate in the archive scientists team a ESAC which together supports the development and ongoing maintenance of the PSA via setting of general requirements and testing. They will have an allocation of 20% of their time for research.

The duties include:

• Providing support to the planetary science lead in the development of general requirements and the testing of the planetary science archive (PSA)
• Developing mission specific requirements for the PSA
• Providing knowledge and requirements from the PDS4 standards and its implementation in the PSA archive to the relevant instrument teams, via regular meetings and interactions
• Providing support to the general planetary science community
• The person will be expected to attend and contribute to at least one science conference each year e.g. EPSC and contribute some of their time to the ESA booth and tutorials, other outreach activities are encouraged

Skills, Qualifications & Knowledge Required

Qualifications / Experience

• PhD or Master’s degree in Planetary Science or equivalent;
• A background in one or more of the TGO or Hera science areas
• Familiarity with planetary data standards i.e. PDS4
• Excellent organisational skills, experience in organising a project or team
• Coding experience, ideally in Python
• Experience working with Jupyter notebooks
• Familiarity with XML, in particular with the PDS4 implementation
• Familiarity with JIRA and Confluence
• Ability to travel to meetings, mainly in Europe

Qualities

• Good interpersonal and communication skills
• Pro‑active attitude to problem solving and customer focus
• Comfortable in an international working environment