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About

Angel Abbud-Madrid is a leading figure in space resource utilization, with a career dedicated to advancing the technologies that will enable humanity to live and work off-world. His research centers on the extraction and processing of extraterrestrial materials, particularly through *in situ* resource utilization (ISRU). He is best known for his pioneering work on "optical mining," a novel approach to excavate volatile-rich asteroids by concentrating sunlight to drive off water and other valuable resources for propellant and life support. His most cited work, the 2019 study "Commercial lunar propellant architecture" (149 citations), outlines a collaborative framework for producing propellant on the Moon, a critical step toward sustainable lunar exploration. Abbud-Madrid also leads efforts to characterize the physical properties of regolith on the Moon, Mars, and asteroids, developing new experimental capabilities that support both scientific discovery and practical ISRU. As the director of the Center for Space Resources at the Colorado School of Mines, he has been instrumental in shaping academic and policy discussions on space resource governance, co-authoring key reviews on the topic. His work is foundational for the next era of space exploration, where local resources will power missions deeper into the solar system.