SpaceVision 26

Paul Abell is the Chief Scientist for Small Body Exploration in the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Division at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. His main areas of interest are physical characterization of near-Earth objects (NEOs) via ground-based and spacecraft observations, examination of NEOs for future robotic and human exploration, mitigation of potentially hazardous asteroids and comets, and identification of potential resources within the NEO population for future in situ utilization. He has been studying NEOs for over 20 years.

He was a science team member on the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Hayabusa near-Earth asteroid sample-return mission and participated in the successful recovery of the spacecraft’s sample return capsule, which returned to Woomera, Australia in June 2010. Paul was a team member of JAXA’s follow-on Hayabusa2 mission and is continuing his role to support the mission in its extended phase. He also aided the cooperation between Hayabusa2 and NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft teams during their operational encounters with asteroids Ryugu and Bennu. Paul was also an investigation team member on NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission which successfully changed the orbit of asteroid Dimorphos. Currently he is a member of both NASA’s Near-Earth Object Surveyor Mission (NEOSM) to find potentially hazardous asteroids and NASA’s OSIRIS-APEX mission to asteroid Apophis. He is also on the European Space Agency (ESA) Hera and RAMSES planetary defense mission teams. Asteroid 8139 (1980 UM1) is named Paulabell in recognition of Paul's contributions to NEO research and exploration studies.