About this job

Serco is a leading Space Services Provider with thousands of skilled resources that has supported over 50 space missions on behalf of more than 10 Space or Government agencies around the globe, including the ESA and NASA. Serco offers space capability across the full space lifecycle from satellite testing to Launch services, LEOP to spacecraft operations, space surveillance to data management, and supporting downstream application development. With over 55 years history in the space sector Serco is well placed to contribute to National strategies and New Space ventures who want to scale their businesses/organizations with skilled talent.

On behalf of our customer EUMETSAT, we are looking for a Ground Stations Operations Engineer. You would be working on-site at EUMETSAT’s site in Darmstadt, with a generous distribution of working hours into the hybrid model. Your mission is to provide Routine Operations services for the operational ground stations for EUMETSAT Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) and Low Earth Orbit (LEO) missions. You would also provide services for the evolution of operational ground stations for all EUMETSAT GEO and LEO missions. Additionally, you would provide services for the Operations Preparation of ground stations, their monitoring functions and test tools for future EUMETSAT GEO and LEO missions.

Responsibilities

Provide Routine Operations services for the operational ground stations for EUMETSAT Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) and Low Earth Orbit (LEO) missions including:

• Conduct and coordinate routine and special operations
• Monitor the performance and quality of the ground stations, report and investigate anomalies, participate in the correction of anomalies and propose evolutions
• Create and maintain schedules
• Contribute to the preparation and maintenance of documentation to perform routine, non-routine and contingency operations activities, including operational procedures, working practices and user guides, in accordance with EUMETSAT document management and configuration control processes
• Contribute to the maintenance of statistics databases and monitoring systems
• Provide statistics and inputs for periodic OPS reporting as defined in operations documentations
• Provide periodic inputs to mission Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
• Contribute the medium and long-term operations planning.

Provide services for the evolution of operational ground stations for all EUMETSAT GEO and LEO missions, including:

• Contribute to the definition of evolutions including requirements specifications and further development
• Evaluate the technical requirements, and assess their compliance with the relevant ground segment requirements
• Contribute to the operational validation of upgrades, and to the compilation of the relevant operational validation reports
• Contribute to the operational validation activities of ground stations evolutions, and to the compilation of the relevant validation reports
• In coordination with the relevant division from the Technical and Scientific Support (TSS) department, define and implement procedures and tools for the monitoring of the ground stations.

Provide services for the Operations Preparation of ground stations, their monitoring functions and test tools for the future EUMETSAT GEO and LEO missions:

• Contribute to reviews, particularly identifying system deficiencies, raising operational risks and suggest their potential resolution
• Contribute to workshops with providing ground stations expertise
• Contribute to the preparation and tracking of the status for configuration items validation and Operational Scenario Validation (OSV)
• Contribute to the definition of operations concepts, operations preparations and commissioning activities
• Contribute to the integration, verification and validation test campaigns within the relevant ground segments
• Contribute to the definition of transition plans
• Contribute to the generation of operational documentation.

Profile

• A university degree (or equivalent) in an engineering or scientific discipline relevant to the job profile (e.g. telecommunications, electronics, radio frequency or equivalent.) or proven experience in ground stations (TT&C and Mission Data Acquisition) in a real-time 24/7 spacecraft operations environment, ideally in an Earth Observation environment.
• Experience in the operations preparation and routine operations of Geostationary (‘GEO’) and/or Low Earth Orbit (‘LEO’) satellite systems;
• Experience of document management and configuration control processes;
• Experience of development and upgrades within a 24/7 operations environment;
• Experience in defining user interfaces for operations (HMI, reports, etc.);
• Experience in the configuration and/or use of Space Link Extension (SLE);
• Experience in the use of Dataminer.

Desirable:

Knowledge or experience in the following:

• Demonstrated experience in managing service teams
• Major upgrades or evolutions of operational ground stations
• Definition and implementation of verification and validation activities of ground stations
• Definition, verification and validation of interfaces between ground stations and ground segments
• Diagnosis and correction of first-line ground stations’ hardware and software failures
• Preparation of requirements, design, interfaces and testing documentation
• Document management and configuration control processes
• Definition of user interfaces for operations (HMI, reports, etc.)
• Relevant technical standards (e.g. ECSS, CCSDS)
• Baseband operation and configuration
• Dataminer, Monitoring and control tool
• Space Link Extension (SLE) operation and/or configuration

Within Serco we believe there is a place here for everyone. Diversity & Inclusion at Serco is based on a culture where every voice is heard, and every employee feels valued. Working together as one team, we can enhance the experience of our people and teams, improve the value of our solutions to better serve the missions of our customers, and make a difference in our world. We are enthusiastic and passionate about our work which is infectious. We allow our employees to take responsibility for their work and promote a positive working culture.

What we offer:

• Competitive Salary.
• Corporate Benefits Package.
• Support provided on relocation – Information available upon request.
• Company Events.