Space AI Data Intern — Mission Data & AI Readiness

European Space Agency; Noordwijk; On-site; EUR 12,000 - 17,000; Full time

Job summary

ESA Noordwijk invites applications for an Intern in the Software and AI Team focused on Data Management and AI Readiness. You will explore mission data, tag metadata, and help shape governance for FAIR data practices.

You will gain hands-on experience with Python, SQL, and data wrangling while collaborating with engineers, scientists, and IT specialists in an international setting. This role includes the potential to prototype tagging scripts and data workflows to support AI-enabled mission

Qualifications

• University student in final or penultimate year of Master’s program.
• Enrollment is guaranteed for the entire duration of the internship.
• Knowledge of Python (pandas, numpy) and SQL is an asset.

Responsibilities

• perform exploratory data analysis and metadata tagging on heterogeneous datasets from past and current missions (e.g. spacecraft telemetry, experiment results, technical reports, 3D models)
• support the cataloguing and profiling of data assets, identifying how they are structured, where they are stored, and how they can be accessed
• help design a data categorisation and governance model, aligned with international standards such as FAIR principles
• contribute to the development of automated workflows for metadata enrichment and data organisation
• assess the potential of datasets for future AI/ML exploitation and digital twin applications
• support the implementation of recommendations from ESA’s ongoing AI study, particularly those related to data infrastructure and readiness
• collaborate with colleagues across engineering, science, and IT to ensure consistency and avoid duplication
• (optional stretch task) develop small prototypes (e.g. scripts for automatic tagging, clustering, or text search) to demonstrate how data could be prepared for AI.

Skills

Python

SQL

Data analysis

Metadata tagging

Education

Pursuing Master's degree in a relevant field

Tools

Jupyter

Pandas

NumPy

Job description

ESA Noordwijk invites applications for an Intern in the Software and AI Team focused on Data Management and AI Readiness. You will explore mission data, tag metadata, and help shape governance for FAIR data practices.

You will gain hands-on experience with Python, SQL, and data wrangling while collaborating with engineers, scientists, and IT specialists in an international setting. This role includes the potential to prototype tagging scripts and data workflows to support AI-enabled mission