How to get a space internship (2027): who hires, when to apply, what it pays

How to land an internship at a rocket, satellite or space agency employer for 2027: who is hiring interns right now, which seasons they recruit for, what they pay, who may apply, what the application asks, and a plan that works from your first year of college.

A space internship is the most reliable door into the industry. Employers use their intern classes to find the engineers and technicians they hire after graduation, so a summer at a launch company or a space agency often turns into a return offer. The hard part is that the openings are spread across dozens of company job boards, the deadlines differ by employer and by country, and many roles carry a citizenship rule that decides who may apply before anything else does.

This guide starts from the openings themselves. Every day our research on internships and entry-level jobs reads every open role on {{company}} and counts the internships and co-ops among them; the figures below are today's reading, and each one opens the row it comes from.

The short version:

• Unavailable internships and co-ops are open today at Unavailable space employers, paying a median Unavailable an hour where the posting states pay. The full list is on space internships.
• Summer 2027 is the season most titles name: Unavailable roles at Unavailable employers, against Unavailable for Spring 2027. Summer programs fill in the fall and winter before, so November is not early, and half of internship postings come down within Unavailable of going up.
• Agencies run their own calendars: ESA's 2027 student internships are open until 30 November 2026, NASA's Summer 2027 deadline is 1 March 2027 and JPL's is 12 March 2027 (each agency's own call is linked below, and its open roles here are on its page: ESA, NASA, JPL).
• Citizenship decides much of the field. Most US space employers can only hire U.S. persons for work under export control, and NASA's and JPL's programs take U.S. citizens (JPL also permanent residents). Students outside the US have their own routes: ESA, CNES, DLR and the European companies post hundreds of internships of their own.
• The application can ask for your GPA: SpaceX's application form asks for a GPA on Unavailable of its forms.

The rest of the guide goes step by step: where the internships are, when to apply, what they pay, who may apply, what the application asks, and how to build a profile that gets picked. If you are weighing whether space is the right field at all, our guide on how to get a job in the space industry covers the whole picture first.

Contents

1. Who is hiring interns right now
2. Which kinds of work take interns
3. When to apply: seasons and deadlines
4. What space internships pay
5. Who may apply: citizenship, export control and studying abroad
6. What the application asks
7. How to build a profile that gets picked
8. A plan by year of study
9. Frequently asked questions
10. How we measured

1. Who is hiring interns right now

The internships are concentrated. A handful of employers post most of them, and the list looks different from the list of the largest employers overall: European agencies and companies, which recruit students in large annual intakes (ESA's open for one month a year), sit beside the US launch and satellite companies that run big intern classes.

The research table ranks every employer with starter roles, and every employer with three or more open internships has a page of its own, with its seasons and the hourly pay its postings state.

Two patterns are worth knowing before you choose where to apply:

• Large classes mean more seats, not easier ones. An employer with fifty open internships runs a structured program with a recruiting calendar, a fixed application window and often an online assessment or a GPA screen. A small company with two openings may decide in a week after one call.
• Many internships are not titled "intern" in the way you expect. French employers post stages and alternance (work-study) roles, German ones Praktikum and Werkstudent. If you read French or German, our pages in those languages list them: Stages et alternance dans le spatial and Praktikum und Werkstudent in der Raumfahrt.

2. Which kinds of work take interns

Internships are not only for aerospace engineering majors. Space employers take interns in software, test, manufacturing, finance and supply chain as readily as in propulsion. Today's starter roles by kind of work:

Starter roles here include internships and co-ops, apprenticeships, new graduate roles and the first level of a ladder. The internships by major are on their own pages: software engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, aerospace engineering, systems engineering and more, and by state, for example California, Colorado, Texas and Washington.

The practical reading: a computer science or electrical engineering student has as many routes in as an aerospace student, often more. Software is among the largest groups, and the work (ground systems, test automation, flight software, data pipelines) is as close to the hardware as any.

3. When to apply: seasons and deadlines

Space employers recruit interns in waves, and the waves differ between commercial companies and agencies.

Commercial companies post by season. A title that names a season is a firm signal of the start date. Today's count by the season the title names:

Most internships name no season at all; they are open until filled. The summer roles are the ones with a calendar: they are posted in the fall, interviewed over the winter and filled by early spring. Applying in November or December puts you in the first rounds, when every seat is still open.

An internship posting does not wait long. Half of the space internship postings this site has seen came down within Unavailable of being posted, against Unavailable for roles that ask for experience ( how long starter postings stay up, from this site's own record of the employers' boards). A posting that comes down has been filled, paused or withdrawn; either way, the week a role goes up is the week to apply.

Agencies publish fixed windows, and missing one means waiting a year:

• ESA publishes its student internships once a year, in November, for about a month. The 2027 call went up on 1 November 2026 and closes on 30 November 2026 at 23:59 CET, with about 175 internships listed. Students can apply to up to two. ESA internships 2027.
• NASA takes applications for its paid OSTEM internships through NASA STEM Gateway; the Summer 2027 deadline is 1 March 2027 and the Fall 2027 deadline 24 May 2027. NASA internships 2027.
• JPL's Summer 2027 deadline is 12 March 2027, and JPL recommends applying between October and February. JPL internships 2027.

Fellowships that come with an internship keep autumn deadlines of their own, and most of this year's have closed (each read on its own site on 4 November 2026):

• The Brooke Owens Fellowship, for undergraduate women and gender minorities of any nationality who have finished a year of college, took applications for its Class of 2027 until 4 October 2026. Fellows get an executive mentor and an alumni mentor; this year the fellowship matches them with host companies rather than guaranteeing an internship. Applications usually open in early fall. Its FAQ.
• The Patti Grace Smith Fellowship, for students in a bachelor's or associate degree program who are U.S. citizens, permanent residents or nationals and not yet in the aerospace workforce, ran its Class of 2027 window from 18 August to 9 October 2026. Fellows receive a first aerospace job paying a living wage, a cash grant and mentorship. Its application page.
• The Matthew Isakowitz Commercial Space Scholarship, for graduate students who are U.S. persons, takes applications for its Class of 2027 until 6 November 2026 at 11:59 pm ET; its scholars are considered by the Commercial Spaceflight Federation and its member companies for a summer internship in the Washington, DC area. The foundation's original Fellowship concluded in 2024 after seven classes. The scholarship page.

A simple rule covers all of them: build your resume and project list over the summer, apply to commercial summer internships in October to December, to NASA and JPL by February, and to ESA in November.

4. What space internships pay

Space internships in the US are paid, and the posted rates are higher than most students expect. Across today's postings that state pay, internships and co-ops pay a median Unavailable an hour, which is Unavailable a year at full time. Summer 2027 internships post a median Unavailable.

Each employer's open internships show the pay their postings state, for example at Rocket Lab, Blue Origin and Lockheed Martin. European internships are paid differently: most post no rate, an internship in France longer than two months must pay at least €4.50 an hour (15% of the social security hourly ceiling; public bodies such as CNES may pay no more than that minimum), according to the French government's own page read on 4 November 2026, and ESA pays a monthly allowance described on its page. Some US internships add housing or a relocation stipend; the posting says so when they do.

5. Who may apply: citizenship, export control and studying abroad

This is the question to settle before writing a single cover letter, because it rules applications in or out regardless of grades.

Export control applies to interns. Rocket engines, spacecraft and much of their software fall under the U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) or the Export Administration Regulations (EAR). An employer may only let a "U.S. person" (a citizen, a lawful permanent resident, a refugee or an asylee) work on that technology without a government license, and most do not apply for licenses for interns. So most US space internship postings carry the same citizenship paragraph as their full-time roles. Our guide on ITAR, export controls and security clearances explains the rules in full, and space jobs open to non-US citizens lists the roles that state no such limit.

The agencies set their own rules. NASA's OSTEM internships take U.S. citizens aged 18 or older with a 3.0 GPA. JPL's summer and year-round programs take U.S. citizens and permanent residents studying at accredited US universities; foreign nationals apply through its Visiting Student Research Program. ESA's internships are for citizens of its Member States, preferably in the last or second-to-last year of a Master's.

Studying outside the US is an advantage in Europe. The European employers in the table in section 1 (ESA, ArianeGroup, Thales Alenia Space, CNES, DLR, Airbus Defence and Space) post most of their internships for students at European universities, and many French and German roles are written in French or German. Our country pages list them: space jobs in Europe, France, Germany.

6. What the application asks

Most space internships are applied for through the employer's own hiring system, and the form asks more than a resume. What the forms ask, read from the forms of every open role whose employer publishes one ( the research):

• Citizenship or U.S. person status, asked on Unavailable of forms. Answer it exactly; it is a legal screen, not a preference.
• Your GPA, asked on Unavailable of forms, almost all of them SpaceX's: it asks for a GPA on Unavailable of its forms and for SAT, ACT or GRE scores on Unavailable. Rocket Lab asks for a GPA on Unavailable of its forms.
• Whether you have applied or interviewed before, asked on Unavailable of forms. Say yes if it is true; recruiters see the earlier application anyway.
• A transcript or GPA in the posting itself, named in Unavailable of all open postings and far more often in internship postings, and a portfolio or work samples, named in Unavailable.

Each employer's how to apply page lists every question its form asks, how many of its forms ask it and whether an answer is required. Reading it before you start takes ten minutes and avoids a half-finished application.

7. How to build a profile that gets picked

Intern recruiters read hundreds of resumes from students with similar grades. What separates the ones who get a call is evidence of hands-on work on real hardware or real software, and the habits that space work needs: testing, documentation and working to a requirement.

• Join a hardware team early. Student rocketry (the Spaceport America Cup, NASA's Student Launch), CubeSat and small satellite teams, Formula SAE, Design/Build/Fly and robotics competitions are the projects space recruiters recognize. Pick one and take a subsystem you can own.
• Write what you built, tested and changed. "Designed the recovery bay in SolidWorks, ran a drop test, cut the mass by 18% after it failed" says more than a list of courses. The space industry resume guide shows how to write it, and the skills space employers ask for shows which tools the postings name for each kind of work (Python, C++, MATLAB, Siemens NX, SolidWorks and GD&T lead).
• Learn one tool the postings ask for. For mechanical roles, Siemens NX or CATIA and GD&T; for software, Python and C++; for electrical, Altium and soldering to IPC standards. A short course plus a project that used it is enough for an intern.
• Apply widely and early. Apply to large programs and small companies in the same season, since each decides on its own calendar. The employer pages on {{company}} show how many interns each is hiring and what its postings pay.
• Prepare for a technical conversation. Many intern interviews are a call with an engineer about your project: what you would do differently, how you tested it, what failed. The space industry interview guide covers what employers describe of their interviews.

8. A plan by year of study

First year. Join a project team and stay with it. Take the programming and CAD courses your major offers early. Apply to programs aimed at first and second years and to smaller companies; a first internship anywhere in engineering counts.

Second year. Own a subsystem on your team and document it. Apply to every summer program you are eligible for between October and December, to NASA by its March deadline, and, if you study in Europe, to ESA in November. In the US, the Brooke Owens and Patti Grace Smith fellowships open in late summer and close in early October. Keep a list of where you applied and when.

Third year. This is the summer that most often leads to a return offer. Apply in the first weeks the summer roles are posted, ask your earlier supervisors for references, and prepare to talk through your best project in depth.

Final year. If you have a return offer, compare it with the new graduate roles open at other employers. If you do not, new graduate programs, first-level roles ( Technician I, Engineer 1) and apprenticeships are the next door; the entry-level space jobs list holds them all.

9. Frequently asked questions

When should I apply for a summer 2027 space internship?

Now. Summer roles are posted in the fall and filled through the winter; today Unavailable open roles name Summer 2027 in their title, all listed on Summer 2027 space internships. NASA's Summer 2027 deadline is 1 March 2027, JPL's 12 March 2027, and ESA's 2027 internships close on 30 November 2026. A posting does not wait for you either: half of internship postings come down within Unavailable of going up.

Which fellowships lead to a space internship?

The Brooke Owens Fellowship (undergraduate women and gender minorities of any nationality) and the Patti Grace Smith Fellowship (U.S. students not yet in aerospace) open in late summer; their Classes of 2027 closed on 4 and 9 October 2026. Graduate students who are U.S. persons can apply to the Matthew Isakowitz Commercial Space Scholarship until 6 November 2026, which considers its scholars for a summer internship in Washington, DC.

Do space internships pay?

In the US, yes: today's postings that state pay offer internships and co-ops a median Unavailable an hour. ESA pays a monthly allowance, and an internship in France longer than two months pays at least €4.50 an hour ( service-public.fr).

Can international students get a space internship in the US?

Rarely at the companies whose work is export-controlled, which is most of them: their internships are open only to U.S. persons. Some roles state no such limit; space jobs open to non-US citizens lists them, and JPL's Visiting Student Research Program takes foreign nationals. Europe's agencies and companies post many internships for students at European universities.

Do I need a high GPA?

It depends on the employer. SpaceX asks for a GPA on Unavailable of its application forms and NASA's OSTEM internships require a 3.0, but most space employers' forms do not ask for one at all (Unavailable of all forms do). Projects and hands-on experience carry more weight at most companies.

Which majors do space internships want?

Every engineering major, computer science, physics and data science, and business majors for finance, supply chain and program roles. Software is among the largest groups of starter roles today (Unavailable in ground software and IT alone).

10. How we measured

The figures of the board come from the research on internships and entry-level jobs and the research on what space job applications ask, rebuilt every day from every open role on {{company}}, read from the employers' own job boards. A role is an internship or co-op when its title says so (in English, French or German); its season is the one its title names, and roles naming none are counted as open until filled. Pay is the median of the figures the postings state, as a year's pay and per hour at 2,080 hours. The agencies' deadlines and rules come from their own pages, each read on the day the guide names beside it.