A mission is travel for work for which ESA has agreed to cover the costs. It is generally provided for ESA Staff Members and Integrated Teams upon request and acceptance by one's Line Manager and Head of Department.
Missions to attend the YPE might be possible for ESA Graduate Trainees (EGTs) (formerly Young Graduate Trainees), National Trainees (NTs), Research Fellows (RFs) and Junior Professionals (JPs) upon request and acceptance by your line manager. A formal communication has previously been sent by HR to all the directorates informing them about the YPE and kindly requesting them to allow their young professionals to attend the event with a mission covered by their department. Should your manager not approve your mission request, contact Andrew Kane for help.
Below is a guide on how to request a mission. Before stepping into the mission approval system, make sure you have discussed it with your line manager and confirmed how many days/nights can be covered by your department for the mission. Usually, it is possible to get a mission to cover 1 return travel ticket and 1 hotel night to attend the YPE. If you wish to stay longer, you can ask for extra nights' accommodation but this is dependent on your manager's discretion. It is also possible to fund additional nights yourself as part of the mission.
Mission Approval System
Before you start using the mission approval system (MAS) make sure you check with your line manager that you can submit the mission request yourself. Some sections prefer that the missions are requested by your administrative assistant.
MAS accessible from ESA Tools : Mission Approval System - Main Page (esa.int)
or via OneESA
Create a new request and provide the following inputs:
Budget Line: ask your manager, must be your department's budget line
Mission category: depends on your status + Conferences, Workshops and Others
Hotel and Ticket required: as per your preference. Choosing "to be booked with Travel Agency" means they will book and pay for flight/train ticket and book the hotel room. You will either have to pay the costs upon check-in at the hotel and ask for refund afterwards or the travel agency will pay it directly ahead of your arrival. You can choose to book everything on your own, keep the invoice for the refund process (explained at the end of the article).
Detail: Young Professional Event 2025 at ESTEC organised by Young ESA - an event for Young Professionals across all ESA sites.
Start of Work: 02-JUN-2025 at 08:00
End of Work: 02-JUN-2025 at 18:00
Journey / Planned Journey
Journey : the nominal journey to reach ESTEC and come back afterwards (the one approved by your manager)
Travel time is also considered as work time during a mission, so, upon approval by your manager, you could travel during work hours.
Planned Journey : if you plan to come before or leave after (take some leave or stay longer) then put the "real" journey in that specific section. IF it is different than the planned one then you can request different dates/times for flights in the "real" journey tab. The travel agent will be in touch with you by email to confirm flights/train times and the hotel booking.
After you hit 'Request', the system will ask you who you want to send the request to.
Choose / add:
- Yourself
- Your line manager
- Your head of department (as agreed with your manager)
- HR: Andrew Kane andrew.kane@esa.int
- If you know it, the secretary of your department
You then have to click on "Submit for Approval" and put in:
- Your line manager
- Your head of department (as agreed with your manager)
- HR: Andrew Kane andrew.kane@esa.int
Please note that you have the possibility to remote work from ESTEC on Tuesday instead of having to take a leave. On the HR Space, you can select the day of Tuesday 3rd of June and then you can select No-Cost Local Mission and input ESTEC as workplace. This will send a request to your line manager (same as when you request a leave) and will count as a work day without having to clock in and out. Make sure to discuss this option with your line manager beforehand.
*Note: For No-Cost Local Missions, please include the start time, end time, and address in the comments.*
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Reimbursement
In case the tickets are not booked by the travel agency, keep your hotel invoice, flight/train tickets and local transport tickets as you will have to submit them for reimbursement (can be done 24 hours after the mission end date).
You do not need to provide any food this is covered in the daily allowance for the mission.
Any questions?
If you have questions, concerns, doubts at any point in this process, do not hesitate to reach out to Manon or Isabelle via email or Teams message directly. We will make sure to answer you promptly and guide you the best way we can.
New How to claim a mission?
- Go to MAS and open your ESTEC YPE mission
- Fill in the requested information
- If you suffered any delays or made any changes to your journey, then edit the Journey (Actual) table to reflect your travel
- Private Car: If you drove to the YPE in your private car then select Yes and add the mileage and passenger names
- Lunch or Dinner Offered: No
- Hotel Excess: Input your number of nights, country, currency, total cost and breakfast information
- Sundry Expenses: any expenses outside of hotel and food (since food is taken consideration in the daily allowance), this can be taxis, train/flight cost (if not already paid by the Travel office), car rental costs
- Attach the hotel receipt in the Hotel Receipts section and the other receipts using the link by each budget line
- Hit CLAIM
- Tick the boxes and hit Claim
- Your mission ID appears under the Claimed section.
A mission gets reimbursement approval within approximately a month of requesting it (so YPE being on June 2nd, the refund will be processed by July 1st). The refund is transferred to your account a couple of days after confirmation sent to your email (unrelated to your salary date). This can take longer or be processed earlier depending on the Travel Agency workload and how early after the YPE you request the reimbursement.
If you have questions, concerns, doubts at any point in this process, do not hesitate to reach out to Manon or Isabelle via email or Teams message directly.
