The team from the Indian Space Research Organization
for space exploration.” Last year in August, during the Chandrayaan-3 mission, a successful landing occurred on the Moon’s south pole, marking India as the first country to achieve this feat.
India’s Consul General in Houston, DC Manjunath, accepted the award on behalf of ISRO during the opening ceremony of the annual Space Symposium in Colorado.
“India’s leadership in space is an inspiration to the world,” Space Foundation CEO Heather Pringle said in a statement in January when the award was announced.
“The pioneering work of the entire Chandrayaan-3 team has again raised the bar for space exploration, and their remarkable lunar landing is a model to us all. Congratulations and we can’t wait to see what you do next!” he said.
(ISRO) responsible for the Chandrayaan-3 mission’s success was honoured with the “2024 John L. ‘Jack’ Swigert Jr. Award for Space Exploration” on Monday, news agency ANI reported, citing a press release by the Space Foundation.
The Space Foundation, in a press release, highlighted that Chandrayaan-3, an ISRO-developed mission, has expanded humanity’s space exploration horizons by becoming the first to land on the Moon’s South Pole.
What is John L. ‘Jack’ Swigert Jr. Award?
The John L. “Jack” Swigert Jr. Award for Space Exploration celebrates remarkable achievements in space exploration and discovery, whether by a company, space agency, or consortium of organisations.
The award is a tribute to the legacy of astronaut John L. “Jack” Swigert Jr., whose contributions “inspired the establishment of the Space Foundation.” A native of Colorado, Swigert was part of the iconic Apollo 13 lunar mission alongside retired U.S. Navy Captain James A. Lovell Jr. and Fred Haise. This mission gained worldwide attention when it faced a critical oxygen tank failure en route to the Moon, resulting in a daring and dramatic return to Earth.
Chandrayaan-3
India made history with its Chandrayaan-3 mission, which accomplished the “first-ever landing at the unexplored south pole of the Moon, Earth’s natural satellite.” At 6.04 p.m. on August 23, the Chandrayaan-3 lander, Vikram, and rover, Pragyan, landed on the lunar surface.
India has become the fourth country to successfully make a “soft landing” on the Moon, after the United States, China, and the erstwhile Soviet Union.
In appreciation of this achievement, Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared August 23 to be National Space Day, celebrating the success of Chandrayaan 3’s Moon landing.
Furthermore, PM Modi declared that the landing site of Chandrayaan 3’s moon lander would be named Shiv Shakti. Six months later, the internationally recognized authority for celestial object nomenclature officially endorsed this designation.
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(Source: HT)
