ISRO gets Space Pioneer award from US body

National Space Society presents the award for accomplishing Mars Mission in its very first attempt

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) was presented the Space Pioneer award for the year 2015 in the Science and Engineering category during the 34th Annual International Space Development Conference held at Toronto in Canada during May 20 -24, 2015.

The National Space Society (NSS) of USA presented the award in recognition of ISRO’s efforts in accomplishing the Mars Mission in its very first attempt, a statement from ISRO said.

India realised her mission to Mars in the very first attempt, a historical feat by any space-faring nation. Team Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) has built the spacecraft with five scientific payloads within just 18 months and launched it on November 5, 2013.

The spacecraft and its payloads have performed as designed during the 300 days journey, traversing about 666 million kilometres in interplanetary space before entering the Mars orbit on September 24, 2014, the statement added. 

The spacecraft is in an elliptical orbit and the high resolution camera onboard MOM is configured to take full-disk color imagery of Mars at apoareion and close-ups at periareion (closest approach to Mars). MOM has outlived the 'Prime' mission life of six months in the Mars orbit and continues to deliver scientifically-significant datasets. Team MOM has handled the scientific, technical, managerial and financial aspects of the mission, the statement added.

In 2009, the NSS had presented a similar award to ISRO in recognition of the success of the Lunar Probe, Chandrayaan-1.

The National Space Society (NSS) is an independent non-profit educational membership organisation dedicated to the creation of a space faring civilisation.

The Space Pioneer Award consists of a silvery pewter Moon globe cast by the Baker Art Foundry in Placerville, California, from a sculpture originally created by Don Davis, the well-known space and astronomical artist.