About Us

Brent Barbee serves as the Lead Planetary Defense Applications Scientist and Community Liaison at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) and is an adjunct faculty member in the University of Maryland’s Department of Aerospace Engineering. A recognized leader in the field of orbital mechanics and mission architecture, he was recently honored as a 2026 AIAA Associate Fellow for his significant contributions to the aerospace community.

At NASA Goddard, Barbee leads critical research in spacecraft mission design for Planetary Defense, focusing on strategies for the reconnaissance, deflection, and disruption of hazardous near-Earth objects (NEOs). His extensive mission experience includes serving on the investigation team for NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART)—the world’s first successful planetary defense flight test—and providing flight dynamics support for the OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return mission. 

Barbee holds a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.