In partnership with ESA and other international organisations, EUMETSAT contributes to the development of several Copernicus missions, for example Sentinel-3, Sentinel-6 and High Priority Copernicus Missions such as CO2M, in order to later assume the responsibility for routine operations. EUMETSAT also develops capability to process global ocean data from CRISTAL and CIMR polar regions monitoring missions. The EUMETSAT activities are funded by the EU Copernicus programme, under Cooperation Agreements with the European Commission, and by EUMETSAT ocean altimetry programmes, e.g. the Jason-CS programme.

As part of the Copernicus Mission Development Division (CMD) the Copernicus Space Segment Coordination Engineer is responsible to develop and maintain competence to space segment related topics allowing EUMETSAT contribution to develop and eventually operate the Copernicus Sentinel Missions.

Duties

• Establish and maintain the competence in the space segment domain being the internal and external EUMETSAT space segment point of contact for the future Copernicus missions;
• Contribute to the definition of the space segment technical and programmatic baseline and maintain it throughout its evolution;
• During requirement definition phase, in line with the relevant cooperation agreement with ESA:
  • Review requirements relevant to the space segment in particular regarding the operability of the Space Segment in alignment with involved partners;
  • Participate in the trade-off analyses of the Space Segment (including those managed by partners) addressing operability, OPS preparation, mission analysis etc;
  • Identify and share with the Space Segment Partner EUMETSAT needs related to development of System and Ground Segment and mission operations (e.g. databases, technical and scientific information, Ground Processing Prototype, test data etc, according to the mission specificities);

• During design & development phase, in line the relevant cooperation agreement with ESA:
  • Coordination of baselines between EUMETSAT and Partners for space segment at technical and programmatic level;
  • Report to EUMETSAT project teams on the status of space segment activities.
• Coordinate participation of EUMETSAT teams to the relevant Space Segment Reviews and other relevant meetings, ensuring issues raised by EUMETSAT are processed according to the agreed procedures;
• Support project activities with recommendations and trade-offs relevant to the development of System and Ground Segment and to risk management;
• Maintain the relevant Space Segment information repository;
• Follow-up the definition and monitor the execution of the satellites’ storage activities.
• Follow-up during the commissioning phase, the health status of the in-orbit satellites, organise support from Industry as required (e.g. anomalies, complex operations, etc.).

Skills and Experience

• Proven experience in Space Segment engineering, procurement and management – preferably in an Earth Observation satellite development environment;
• Familiarity with the management of ESA satellite development programmes would be a strong advantage;
• Experience with system baseline management, formal engineering reviews and risk management processes;
• Strong level of diplomacy and tact, with the ability to balance sometimes conflicting inter-agency priorities while still advocating for the interests of the home institution;
• Excellent interpersonal skills with proven ability to apply these to the interactions with teams having different or conflicting interests;
• Demonstrated ability to work on multiple projects/programmes simultaneously with sometimes different constraints, and/or tasks/schedule demands, requiring flexibility and adaptiveness.