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TOP: Nat Panek conducting tests at
MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates based in
Brampton, Ontario, Canada, Earth.
BOTTOM: “What I’ve come to love so much
about this work is that it’s trying to hold us
accountable for taking care of the environment
that we explore.”
In 2017, Natalie Panek, an aerospace engineer near Toronto,
got a life-changing notification: She had not been selected to
become an astronaut. “It was heartbreaking,” she says. “For
me, becoming an astronaut was the ultimate adventure. You
chase this goal for 25 years—and then it’s over.”
Panek had long been heralded as an up-and-coming space
traveler. Born in Calgary, she grew up exploring the Canadian
Rockies, which inspired her to venture into the cosmos. After
graduating as the only girl in her high school physics class,
she studied engineering in college and nabbed an internship
with NASA. Aiming to become an astronaut, she went on to
get her private pilot’s license, help design and drive a solar-
powered car across North America, and even work on a rover
program to Mars.
DESIGNING A CLEANER
SOLAR SYSTEM
HOW ARC’TERYX
PROBLEM SOLVER
NATALIE PANEK
IS WORKING
TO FIX A GLOBAL
PROBLEM:
TRASH IN SPACE
But, in 2017, passed over for
space flight due to a potential
immune-system issue, Panek
traveled home for the weekend
to rethink her life. Hiking her
childhood mountains, she looked
up at the sky and had a new
appreciation for the need to
clean up the orbital environment
around Earth. “Growing up
camping, I was taught to leave no
trace,” she says. “The space we’re
exploring is wilderness—and we
need to take care of it.”
Now Panek is helping to design
missions to refuel and repair
defunct satellites orbiting Earth.
Of the nearly 5,000 satellites
in space, only about 2,000 are
operational. To ensure the
defunct satellites don’t crash
into each other—leading to
cascading wrecks and debris—
Panek is orchestrating missions
to repurpose them to keep our
skies clean for the future. “We
need to change how we do
things,” she says. “It’s cool to be
at the forefront of taking care
of our orbital environment.
We’re explorers.”
DISCOVER MORE AT:
ARCTERYX.COM/PROBLEM-SOLVERS
