The ISRO Chandrayaan-3 mission team was honoured with the 2024 John L ‘Jack’ Swigert Jr. award for space exploration, by the Space Foundation based in the US. This prestigious award, given annually, celebrates remarkable achievements in space exploration and discovery by space agencies, companies, or consortia of organizations.

The award ceremony took place during the Space Symposium’s annual opening ceremony in Colorado on April 8. DC Manjunath, Consul General of India in Houston, accepted the award on behalf of ISRO’s Chandrayaan team.

Space Foundation CEO Heather Pringle praised India’s leadership in space, highlighting the Chandrayaan-3 mission’s technical and engineering excellence. The John L “Jack” Swigert Jr award commemorates astronaut John L “Jack” Swigert Jr, a pivotal figure in space exploration history.

Recent winners of this award include NASA, the University of Arizona OSIRIS-REx team, the teams behind the NASA JPL Mars Ingenuity Helicopter and InSight-Mars Cube One missions, as well as NASA Dawn and Cassini missions.

Space Foundation, established in 1983, is a nonprofit organization providing information, education, and collaboration opportunities for the global space ecosystem.

India became the first nation to land a spacecraft on the Moon’s South Pole in September last year, solidifying its position as a key player in lunar exploration alongside the US, Russia, and China.