The National Space Society based in Washington DC has chosen the ISRO’s Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) team, headed by M. Annadurai, for its 2015 Space Pioneer Award.
The society announced on Monday that a representative of the team would be presented the honour in the science and engineering category during its annual international conference in Toronto in May.
“This mission has achieved two significant mission firsts. An Indian spacecraft has gone into orbit around Mars on the very first try [on September 24, 2014]. No other country has ever done this. Two, very few full disk images have ever been taken in the past, mostly on approach to the planet, as most imaging is done looking straight down in mapping mode. These images will aid planetary scientists.”
The society describes itself as “an independent, educational, grassroots, non-profit organisation dedicated to the creation of a space-faring civilisation.”
