New year, new job??

Happy new year everyone!

I hope you’re off to a great start of the year, managed to rest a bit and disconnect for at least a few days.

We took a large break but (surprise, surprise), the space industry didn’t. While some of us were eating polvorones and others we’re capturing Maduro, Italy launched the third COSMO-SkyMed satellite last week.

I feel this is said of every year but 2026 IS the year… haha this time for sure 😅

Now we have a lot planned for Find a Space Job this year so be ready. But we start with best vacancies available now

🚀 First (and best) roles of 2026

Here are the best openings to start the year.

• Intern in Artificial Intelligence for Space Standards and Requirements Analysis @ ESA (Netherlands)

  👉 This one is a nice internship.

• Sales Engineer @ Endurosat (Bulgaria)

  👉 Get to sell satellites to people who need them. You need to know and understand the technology and be able to sell it. Nice.

• Innovation Programme Manager @ OneWeb (UK)

  👉 Manage innovation projects at Eutelsat OneWeb. It's a massive LEO constellation that's already up there, so you'd be working on what comes next for them.

• Optical Engineer @ Odysseus Space (Luxembourg)

  👉 Lasers in space. Optical comms are here to stay and Odysseus is building the systems. If you know your way around photonics, check it out.

• Project Manager - Scheduler, IRIS2 Programme Office @ SES Satellites (Luxembourg)

  👉 Keep IRIS2 on schedule. Please. And good luck, haha.

• ESA Graduate Trainee in Human Resources - Recruitment Support Service (2 posts) @ ESA (Netherlands)

  👉 Help hire people for ESA. If you get this role let me know. We’ve got stuff to do.

• Multiple internship positions (software, business development) @ Radian Systems (Remote)

  👉 Two roles: software engineer and business development/sales intern. And it’s remote :)

• R&D Intern — Martian Regolith Research & Simulant Development @ Hispansion (Spain)

  👉 A nice internship at a very very very new startup. Not many get to create/develop martian soil.

And a lot more. Don’t think these are the only cool roles around.

🗞️ The "Holiday Catch-Up"

What you might have missed while during Christmas.

1. Italy kicks off the year

As mentioned, the third COSMO-SkyMed satellite is safely in orbit. It launched from California on January 3. It’s a huge asset for Italian Earth Observation (and Defense), offering some of the highest-resolution radar data available. A perfect start to the year for ASI and Thales Alenia Space.

2. Cybersecurity is important!

You might have seen the headlines: ESA confirmed a server breach late last month. While it seems limited to "unclassified collaborative tools" (so no mission critical flight data was lost), it’s a big reminder. As space becomes more integrated with defense and critical infrastructure, cybersecurity is to become a lot more important.

The good (?) thing is that you can expect to see a lot more jobs in this field in 2026. So perhaps is a field worth looking into.

3. The Launcher race is on (again)

Keep your eyes on the news this month. Rumors are that Isar Aerospace is targetting a launch window as early as mid January for the second flight of Spectrum from Andøya. If they pull this off early in the year, it sets a massive pace for the rest of the European launcher market.

For the pros, here’s the COSMO-SkyMed launch video: the landing clip just never disappoints.

🔮 Predictions for 2026

This is a tradition every start of the year. Let’s see if you agree with my “prophecies” haha (and share yours with me if you want!)

I have a few:

• SpaceX recovers Starship upper stage.

• This one is a bit less glamorous but is already happening so: defense becomes the main customer for many many many companies. Just take a look at how the year began. It seems there’s more money to be made (because of gov contracts) on the side of defence.

• This one had to be here: Isar Aerospace reaches orbit. It has to happen 100%

• And will we see SpaceX reach 200 launches in 2026? Their growth pretty much suggests that…

  

  From @SawyerMerritt

That’s it for the first week.

Let’s make 2026 the best year in European space so far. If you’ve reached this point and are looking for a job why not check this out 👉 find me a job now 😉

As usual: connect on LinkedIn and follow the Find a Space Job for updates.

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