About this job

For our customer, the European Space Agency (ESA), we are seeking an experienced Antenna Testing Engineer to work at ESA’s ESTEC site in Noordwijk, The Netherlands.

Responsibilities

You will be assigned to ESA/ESTEC’s Antenna & Sub-mm Waves Section within the Directorate of Technical and Quality Management (D/TEC).

Within the section activities cover two main areas:
o Preparing and monitoring Research and Development activities in the field of (spaceborne) Antennas. A diverse range of tasks are carried out within the Antenna and Sub-Millimetre wave engineering domain, encompassing hardware, software and system aspects.
o Provide antenna technical support to ESA projects. This includes “in-house” design and trade-off studies to support both developments and reviews. Tasks will require the analysis and design of reflector antennas and arrays and the calculation of the interference effects between antennas and the spacecraft structure.

The specific tasks you will be required to perform are:
• Supporting the Antenna Test campaigns within the ESTEC Antenna Measurement Laboratory, including test definition, test execution and delivery of data/test report to the customer (internal or external);
• Perform testing activities in Spherical, Planar, Cylindrical Near Field, Compact Range and Material RF Characterisation facilities, including test plans and test setup preparation, operation of the test ranges and analysis of test results;
• Perform research testing activities that challenge the current state-of-the-art in space antenna measurements, aiming at enabling new testing capability and fulfil the needs of future ESA space missions in all space applications (Earth Observation, Navigation, Science, Telecommunications, Human Space Flight and Space Transportation);
• Support the Antenna Measurement Laboratory Maintenance and Equipment Calibration activities;
• Support to Antenna Design and Modelling activities;
• Hands-on antenna modelling support to projects.

This is a full-time position located at ESTEC, Noordwijk, The Netherlands.

The requested start of work is January 2021 or as soon as possible thereafter.

Profile

The successful candidate shall have:
• A Master’s degree or equivalent qualification in Electrical Engineering or a related discipline.
• At least 4 years of relevant industrial experience, with a general background in antenna technologies and experience in antenna testing (preferably in the space domain);
• Good working knowledge of Near and Far field antenna testing systems;
• Capability for performing activities related to all aspects of testing and integration of antenna systems in an autonomous way;
• General understanding of measurement uncertainty and accuracy;
• Experience in maintenance and calibration of general RF antenna laboratory test equipment and instrumentation;
• Good working knowledge on antenna systems and design approaches;
• Good working knowledge on latest antenna design and modelling software tools;
Desirable:
• Experience with handling of space hardware is considered an asset;
• Prior experience with ESA or other space programmes and the associated processes (e.g. ECSS standards) would be useful;
• Awareness of the wider space systems engineering domains and processes would be useful;
Soft skills:
• Proactive attitude to solving problems;
• Good organisational skills and capable of supporting multiple tasks in parallel.