We always look forward to hearing from people who are interested in joining Telespazio VEGA and who are seeking opportunities to further their career in leading Space and satellite programmes. The majority of our work is in Europe, but we also provide support to Space programmes in the USA and elsewhere.
Our offices and operations are located in the United Kingdom, Spain and Holland. Our head office is located at Capability Green, Luton.
We recruit from a wide variety of academic, geographic and cultural backgrounds. We expect applicants who apply for an international position to be eligible to work in that country, and hold a business-level fluency in the English language.
Living and working in a different country can be challenging. We ensure that those who join Telespazio VEGA in an international position are afforded support and assistance when required. We will help you in dealing with everything from local legislation and employment issues, to living and working in a different culture.
Telespazio VEGA is committed to an Equal Opportunities & Diversity Policy in employment and, subject only to considerations of national security, will assess applicants for jobs fairly and without regard to sex, marital status, race, religion, colour, age, nationality, ethnic or national origins. However, due to the nature of our work, some areas within Telespazio VEGA are engaged on contract projects, which impose limitations on who we can employ for a particular type of work.
Telespazio VEGA and ESTEC
ESTEC is the Research and Technology Centre for the European Space Agency (ESA) based in Noordwijk, The Netherlands. ESTEC is responsible for preparing ESA’s space missions, testing satellites, and developing new space technology in close collaboration with Europe’s private sector and research institutions. ESTEC has the largest spacecraft test facilities in Europe, is located on the West Coast of the Netherlands between Amsterdam and The Hague, and is home to as many as 2,000 people from around Europe.
Teams working at ESTEC comprise all 15 ESA member states, although the official languages are English and French.
Telespazio VEGA staff have been working at ESTEC since 1994, our employees work across multiple domains.. We provide a wide range of support services including engineering, computing, science, simulations, operations and software. The Space programmes we currently support include:
- ADM Aeolus
- Automated Transfer Vehicle
- Columbus
- Galileo
- Herschel
- Integral
- MetOP
- Planck
- Rosetta
- SMART-1
Herschel and Planck
Herschel and Planck are two ESA space observatories (satellite telescopes) which launched in May 2009, to explore the conception and evolution of the Universe.
Herschel, at approximately 9 metres high and 4.5 metres wide, is the largest space telescope of its kind…bigger than Hubble. Named after William Herschel who discovered infrared light in 1800, the telescope is exploring the coolest and most distant objects of the Universe which are invisible to the human eye. It collects information using long-wavelength infrared (thermal) radiation to view these objects through the “heat” they emit.
Telespazio VEGA is supporting ESTEC to develop leading-edge software (with the latest object-oriented design principles and Java code) which will enable the mission’s science ground segment to analyse the complex data sent back from Herschel.
The Planck telescope has been described as ESA’s ‘time machine’, as allows astronomers to look back to the beginning of space and time as we know it, the Big Bang.
The Universe is now filled with Cosmic Microwave Background radiation (CMB) and CMB is actually the first light that ever existed freely in the Universe. As the Universe expanded, the waves of this primeval light were stretched to a much lower frequency and exist today as CMB.
Observing this “first light” today, is like seeing the Universe as it was only 300,000 years after the Big Bang and will help astronomers to develop theories describing its birth and evolution.
Telespazio VEGA is supporting the development of an Integrated Data and Information System (IDIS) which enable information management among all Planck developers throughout Europe and North America. We are also providing support to the Project Scientist’s Office in the form of ground segment engineering.
ADM Aeolus
The Atmospheric Dynamics Mission (ADM-Aeolus) will further our knowledge of the Earth’s atmosphere and weather systems by providing global observations of three-dimensional wind fields. By recording and monitoring the weather in different parts of the world, ADM-Aeolus will allow scientists to build complex models of our environment, which can then be used to help predict how that environment will behave in the future, including phenomena such as El Niño.
Telespazio VEGA is supporting the development of an Aeolus system simulator which will enable ESA scientists to generate the anticipated data from the Aeolus mission for all operational and calibration phases thereby assessing the overall system performance under a variety of atmospheric conditions.
Telespazio VEGA at ESAC
The European Space Astronomy Centre hosts the scientific operations centres for ESA’s astronomy and planetary missions, along with their scientific archives. Based at Villanueva de la Cañada, near Madrid in Spain, ESAC provides services to astronomical research projects worldwide.
Telespazio VEGA has engineers & scientists working at ESAC. We support major astrophysics missions such as Herschel, Planck, Gaia and XMM by developing software, calibrating the instrumentation and interpreting the scientific data. Our staff also work on a number of planetary probes including Venus Express, Mars Express, and Rosetta. For these, we monitor the status and health of the probes, plan the in-orbit observing schedules and programme comet interactions. We take a leading role in making all the data available for the scientific community via online archives, and by a sophisticated infrastructure known as the Virtual Observatory.
ESAC is the hub of Europe’s space research, and VEGA staff have the luxury of getting sight of new data taken by some of the world’s most advanced Space telescopes and probes. The site in Madrid is fairly small and retains an intimate, friendly, atmosphere which makes for a pleasant and stimulating working environment.
For more information and to talk to our experts call +44 (0)1582 399 000 or email careers@telespazio.com.