Sometimes realising a dream requires doing the minutest of tasks in order to gain the experience and work your way up. Even if those acts are something you wouldn’t willingly perform. Claire Parfitt’s first introduction to a space career was cleaning up space toilets. Today, she is leading exploration teams to Mars.She was 14, when she began spending time at the National Space Centre in Leicester. Originally from Nottingham, she recalled how in her early years, she developed an interest in science. Her parents and her science teachers at Fernwood School in Wollaton, helped pave the way for her career.Initially, she applied for work experience at NASA, but was turned down. Eventually, she secured a placement at the National Space Science Centre. During her time there, staff were planning and collecting artefacts for the opening of the country’s flagship space science attraction, the National Space Centre. “I just knew that’s always what I wanted to do. The director of the Space Centre in those days was a lady called Alex Hall. To see someone in that position, I think it really helped me to envisage my own career in the space industry,” she said.She recalled exhibits being delivered to the offices ahead of the opening of the Space Centre in June 2001. “One of those was a space toilet, which I had never seen before and I helped to unpack it,” she said. “There was obviously some preservation that had to happen, some cleaning.Along with cleaning the toilet, she helped unpack the space unit worn by Helen Sharman, who became the first British person to travel into space. Since it opened 25 years ago, the National Space Centre has welcomed almost six million visitors. Parfitt described the attraction as incredible, and added: “The Space Centre is such an inspirational place for people to go. I know I was involved from a very, very early age. I’m pretty sure it put me on the track that I’m on now for my space career.“
A move to Mars
Parfitt did her BSc Hons in Physics from The Open University and completed her PhD in Spacecraft Power Systems Engineering from the University of Warwick. In terms of her career, the 42-year-old initially worked in the UK as a research secretary for the University of Nottingham, a PhD researcher at the University of Warwick, a spacecraft systems engineer at the Systems Engineering and Assessment Ltd and Lead Systems Engineer and Systems Engineering Manager at Thales Alenia Space.Following this she moved to the European Space Agency’s European Space Research and Technology Centre in the Netherlands in 2019. Now, she leads a team planning for the future human and robotic exploration of Mars. She is also the chair of the International Mars Exploration Working Group. She has also worked on missions such as the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover, which will explore the surface of Mars. And, she has worked on the SMILE mission, officially known as the Solar wind, Magnetospheric, Ionic Link Explorer mission – which uses four science instruments to study how Earth responds to the solar wind from the Sun.“When Rosalind Franklin launches in 2028 that will be extremely exciting. For future Mars missions, there’s a lot to do to prepare for human exploration. We have to plan the next decades carefully to make sure that we preserve Mars and get the best science data that we can back for Europe,” she said to the BBC.
