Paolo Angelo Nespoli (born 6 April 1957) is an Italian astronaut and engineer of the European Space Agency (ESA). In 2007, he first traveled into space aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery as a mission specialist of STS-120. In December 2010 he again traveled into space aboard the Soyuz TMA-20 spacecraft as an Expedition 26/27 flight engineer. Nespoli's third spaceflight was onboard Soyuz MS-05 which launched in July 2017 for Expedition 52/53. He is also the European Space Agency's oldest active astronaut.
Nespoli's hometown is Verano Brianza, in northern Italy. He is married to Alexandra Ryabova and they have one daughter and a son. Nespoli enjoys Scuba diving, piloting aircraft, photography, building electronic equipment and computer software. He supports Serie A team Inter.
He received his bachelor's degree in Aerospace engineering in 1988 and his master's degree in 1989 in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Polytechnic University in New York.