Planetary Protection Engineer

A Joint Venture between Thales (67%) and Leonardo (33%), Thales Alenia Space is a global space manufacturer delivering, for more than 40 years, high-tech solutions for telecommunications, navigation, Earth Observation, environmental management, exploration, science and orbital infrastructures. Thanks to our diversity of skills, talents and cultures, our customers (governments, institutions, space agencies, telecommunications operators), therefore have Space to Connect, Secure & Defend, Observe & Protect, Explore, Travel & Navigate.

We are looking for a Planetary Protection Engineer

This position focuses on all activities related to the Planetary Protection Engineering Discipline.

Planetary protection is a field within space exploration that focuses on preventing biological contamination of both the Earth and other celestial bodies. This discipline ensures that space missions do not inadvertently carry terrestrial biological matter to other planets, moons, or other bodies in the solar system (forward contamination) and that extraterrestrial samples do not bring unknown and potentially harmful biological materials back to Earth (backward contamination).

As a Planetary Protection Engineer, the candidate will work within the Engineering Directorate, providing technical support to projects which missions operates both in manned and in unmanned scientific missions.

In this frame, the candidate will be progressively involved and required to:

• Study mission requirements, identify Planetary Protection implications and derive higher level planetary protection requirements;
• Calculate Planetary Protection requirements and prepare the related requirements specifications;
• Assess impacts of organic and microbiological contamination requirements to spacecraft design, manufacturing, assembly, testing, launch and mission phases and plan all activities to be foreseen to meet al mission needs related to the discipline;
• Interact with all engineering disciplines, as well as with manufacturing, quality and assembly and integration departments to assure consistency between flight H/W design and Planetary Protection requirements;
• Supervise and provide Planetary Protection engineering support for Bioburden assay processes of Microbiological laboratory and Bioburden reduction procedures of AIT (Assembly Integration and Testing phases) on Spacecraft hardware;
• Calculate Microbial Contamination surface density on spacecraft materials starting from Bioburden Assay Data;
• Prepare Microbial Contamination Budgets, based on the hardware structure of the spacecraft under development;
• Prepare Microbial Contamination test plans, based on the activities schedule and development plan of typical and specific space system;
• Assess sterilization processes and materials compatibility with sterilization agents;
• Perform liquid compatibility analyses with spacecraft materials;
• Supervise Aseptic operations execution in AIT;
• Coordinate and Train personnel working in Bioburden controlled and Aseptic environment;
• Ensure materials and processes and sub-assemblies compatibility with mission requirements in terms of ground and space environmental effects as well as with storage and launcher requirements;
• Evaluate materials properties in terms of contamination emission on-ground and in-orbit and the related impact on the spacecraft design;
• Evaluate chemical analyses (at least FT-IR spectrometric, GC-MS spectra, microscope evaluations)
• Perform high precision cleaning activities (intended as removal of contaminants) on spacecraft elements and specific cleanliness inspections;
• Carry out R&D activities pertaining the discipline

All these activities will be carried out both on ESA projects and for NASA, implying the use of the two related different standardizations.

Key duties:

• High knowledge of microbiology fundamentals
• High level knowledge in chemistry with particular focus on organic chemistry and materials science (at least non-metallic materials)
• Basic duties in chemical analyses results and reports evaluation
• Good knowledge of satellite architecture and relevant main subsystems
• Good knowledge of organization and follow-on of R&D and laboratory activities
• Good level in documents and presentation preparation
• High level knowledge in Excel use

Skills, experience and qualifications required:

• Master degree in microbiology, biotechnology, aerospace engineering, chemical engineering, materials engineering or pure chemistry
• Fluent English (spoken and written)
• Organized and methodical with strong communication skills
• High team working capabilities and customer orientation
• Good will in facing and learning new things
• Available for business travels in Italy and abroad
• Attitude towards innovation and problem solving
• ECSS-U-ST-20C, ECSS-Q-ST-70-01C and IEST-STD-CC1246E knowledge is an asset.

At Thales Alenia Space we provide CAREERS and not only jobs. With Thales Alenia Space employing around 8,900 employees in 10 countries with 17 sites in Europe and a plant in the US, our mobility policy enables employees each year to develop their careers at home and abroad. Thales Alenia Space sees space as a new horizon, helping to build a better, more sustainable life on Earth #SpaceForLife. Great journeys start here, apply now!