Our team and mission

The Aerothermodynamics and Flight Vehicles Engineering Section provides engineering support to ESA's application directorates, focusing on research and technology (R&T), simulation, and testing activities in the areas of aerothermodynamics, fluid mechanics, flight physics, and flight vehicle engineering. 

The Section offers expertise in high-speed vehicles, both vertical and/or horizontal flight, suborbital and/or orbital vehicles, space logistics vehicles, as well as vehicles designed for entry, descent, landing (EDL), and (re-)entry with reusable or demisable technologies.

As the technical focal point for flight vehicle architecture design, analysis, and assessment, the Section performs overall feasibility and viability assessments, as well as quick design iterations with the support of the necessary competences within the Directorate.

Additionally, the Section manages and operates facilities for Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), visualisation, fluidics and flow-related hardware, and is responsible for the procurement and maintenance of tools for propulsion, aerothermodynamics, fluid mechanics, and flight physics modelling.
 

You are encouraged to visit the ESA website: http://www.esa.int

Field(s) of activity/research for the traineeship

Flight Vehicle Engineering Reusability uses new, modern techniques and technologies for the design of space vehicles that can fly several times with similar configurations (reusable). Flight Vehicle Engineering Reusability uses Design forReusability (D4R) techniques to meet its objectives.

D4R requires, in addition to a multi-disciplinary design methodology, inclusion of cyclic aero-thermo-mechanical loads and the cumulative degradation to which any reusable vehicle is exposed after a series of flights. These assessments are of great importance in assessing the degree of reusability of a space vehicle. Furthermore, this should occur not only at a global level but also at local levels in specific areas and subsystems of the vehicle (hot spots). The local level hot spots can introduce gaps, imperfections linked to manufacturing or integration, degradation, and even damage, due to differential expansion, etc. The hot spots can determine the life cycle and reusability of a vehicle, structural material, thermal protection, or any other subsystem. Whereas the global cyclic load predictions are at present easily retrievable,the anticipation of hot spots is not straightforward. Moreover, the occurrence of hot spots has been shown (e.g., on the Space Shuttle) to also give rise to non-symmetrical loads acting on the vehicle resulting in unwanted roll and yaw rates, and thereby affecting overall controllability of the vehicle.

You will investigate the criteria to be developed to avoid or minimise the occurrence of hot spots and assess their overall impact. The empirical correlations extracted from experiments on-ground would need to be extrapolated to flight conditions.

Your work will include the following objectives to be achieved:

Objective 1:
Research of the past and current state of the art in the occurrence and generation of hot spots for flight vehicle
engineering reusability. This will also include the feasibility of and difficulties in reproducing hot spots on ground facilities and extrapolation to flight.

Objective 2:
Based on the ESA mission's needs, assessment of the impact of the hot spots on internal and external flow
configurations using the Section's simulation toolset. This objective will cover the modelling and running of simulations of incipiency towards transitional and turbulent flows resulting in increased and asymmetric drag forces and heat loads. The Section's existing toolset could be further extended or augmented.

Objective 3:
Design of experiments to be conducted in selected ground facilities across ESA Member States, including the Fluid Dynamics Facility at ESTEC. This includes the proposal for a comprehensive plan to test, verify, and validate the simulation runs.

Objective 4:
Running of a selected set of the experiments planned for objective 3 together with the subsequent verification and validation of the models developed for objective 2 from the output of the experiments.

Technical competencies

Behavioural competencies

Result Orientation

Operational Efficiency

Fostering Cooperation

Relationship Management

Continuous Improvement

Forward Thinking

For more information, please refer to ESA Core Behavioural Competencies guidebook

Education

You should have just completed, or be in the final year of your master’ s degree in Mechanical or Aerospace Engineering.

Additional requirements

You should have good interpersonal and communication skills and should be able to work in a multicultural environment, both independently and as part of a team. Previous experience of working in international teams can be considered an asset. Your motivation, overall professional perspective and career goals will also be explored during the later stages of the selection process. 

Knowledge of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) tools, programming and scripting (e.g. Python) is a prerequisite.

Knowledge of turbulence/transition modelling with engineering and/or high-fidelity tools would be an additional asset.