India's Chandrayaan-3 mission gets Goddard Astronautics Award from AIAA

Washington: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) was on Thursday honoured with the Goddard Astronautics Award for 2026 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) for the Chandrayaan-3 mission.

India's Ambassador to the US Vinay Mohan Kwatra received the award at the ASCEND conference of the AIAA.

According to the citation, ISRO received the award "for the groundbreaking landing of the ISRO's Chandrayaan-3 near the lunar south pole region, to deepen our understanding of the moon and beyond."


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"Congratulations to @isro and Chandrayaan 3 team on winning the prestigious 2026 Goddard Astronautics Award from The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics @aiaa," Kwatra said in a post on X.

"Honoured to accept the award on behalf of ISRO and to highlight Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi's Space Vision 2047 and the upcoming deep space exploration and human spaceflight missions, and growing commercial space ecosystem in India," Kwatra said.

The previous recipients of the award are Jeff Bezos of Blue Origin, Michael Hawes, a NASA engineer who contributed to the design, manufacturing and operations of the human spaceflight programmes, among others.