Intern (m/f/d): Propulsion (Electric Propulsion Plasma Modelling)

The propulsion department from OHB is looking for an intern to contribute to the development of openPIC, an in-house Particle-In-Cell (PIC) simulation framework for electric propulsion applications. The goal of the internship is to extend the capabilities of the code to simulate plasma interactions resulting from simultaneous operation of multiple electric thrusters. The intern will be fully integrated into the Analysis team of the propulsion department.

Electric propulsion systems are increasingly used in complex spacecraft configurations involving several thrusters operating simultaneously. The internship will focus on extending openPIC to model plasma plume interactions, electromagnetic effects, and spacecraft-plasma coupling phenomena associated with multi-thruster firing scenarios.

Tasks

• Get introduced to openPIC and Particle-In-Cell simulation methodologies
• Investigate physical models relevant to electric propulsion plume interactions
• Extend the openPIC framework to support multiple interacting thruster sources
• Implement and verify new plasma and electromagnetic interaction models
• Apply the methodology to representative spacecraft electric propulsion architectures
• Perform verification and validation of the developed implementations
• Improve software performance and documentation