Phil Bland is Professor of Planetary Science at Curtin University. He came to Curtin in 2012 on an Australian Laureate Fellowship to develop the Desert Fireball Network.

Previously he was director of the planetary research centre at Imperial College London. In 2015 Bland established a partnership between NASA and Australia in planetary, space and exploration science. In 2017 Bland initiated the Binar Space Program in order to develop a WA spacecraft engineering capability, and in 2018, the Curtin Space Science and Technology Centre. SSTC flew its first spacecraft in August 2021. Three more flew in Q3 2024 and are currently in orbit and fully operational. Bland has been on six planetary mission science teams. He is currently a science team member on the ESA BepiColombo mission, the OSIRIS-REx NASA asteroid sample return mission, the JAXA Hayabusa 2 mission to asteroid Ryugu, and the NASA Lucy mission to the Trojan asteroids. In 2006, Asteroid ‘1981 EW21’ was renamed ‘(6580) Philbland’ in recognition of his contributions to space and planetary science. He was named Western Australia Scientist of the Year in 2019. His goal is to see Australia take its place amongst space faring nations by leading our own science missions.