WOMEN at the UK Space Agency are reaching for the stars as they mark International Women’s Day.

Two of the agency’s bright stars are today urging their fellow females to take full advantage of everything the space sector has to offer.

Rebecca Evernden and Catherine Mealing-Jones, two highly-esteemed professionals in their chosen fields, have spoken of the positive steps being made to address the sector’s gender imbalance and to encourage more and more children to get involved with the sciences.

All week the pair have been involved with various activities taking place at the UK Space Agency – both in Swindon and in London – to mark International Women’s Day.

Rebecca, who job shares the role of director of policy and whose main responsibility is to provide advice on civil space activities to government ministers, said: “Women’s Day is marked in quite a big way.

“As a department, gender issues are taken very seriously.

“Various seminars and question and answer sessions are taking place this week and people will be engaging with each other on a number of related topics.

“Generally speaking, we have a good record with women in senior management positions, and it’s reflected in the number of women working in the agency — half the board executives are women.

“But there’s always room for improvement.”

Rebecca was also proud of the fact that the agency has had a female chief executive – Katherine Courtney – since last April, though from next month Graham Turnock will take over.

Rebecca’s colleague, Catherine Mealing-Jones, echoed a similar sentiment and sought to address the issue of igniting women’s interest in the science sector from a young age.

Catherine, who has been director of growth at the agency since 2014, and who is responsible for expanding it on a national and international scale, said: “We are always doing things to push women into the sciences because there’s still a balance tipped towards men.

“We have a lot of strong female role models in the sector, such as Monica Grady, professor of planetary and space science at the Open University.

“But girls in school don’t always respond to things that are targeted specifically at them. So we are trying to engage with them without seeming too patronising.

“Much of what our outreach programme is about is focusing resources on primary school children to give as many of them a good understanding and a good exposure to science. And we get amazing responses from parents, teachers and children.

“For people who don’t know much about space, it’s a huge opportunity to take advantage of what’s available.”

Looking to the future, a hopeful Rebecca said: “I think it’s really difficult to make changes in just a few years. I think the space sector needs to keep focused on being the best it possibly can be. We need people with focus and the drive to succeed.

“We are on the cusp of a space revolution. With the increased commercialisation of space there are huge opportunities for development. There is a growing entrepreneurial part of the sector where we don’t need science skills but business drive, too. There’s no reason why women can’t succeed in those areas just like men.”

They had one last piece of advice for women looking to break into the space sector — watch Hidden Figures. The film, currently in cinemas across the country, tells the story of a team of African-American women mathematicians who served a vital role in NASA during the early years of the US space program.