ISRO's MOM team to awarded prestigious US award

Bengaluru, Jan 14:ISRO's MOM team has been awarded USA's 2015 Space Pioneer Award in the science and engineering category for achieving the rarest of the rare feat in the very first attempt.

The award would be presented to the Mars Orbiter Programme Team during the National Space Society's 2015 International Space Development Conference to be held in Toronto from May 20-24.

In a statement, the Society cited the reasons why the team was selected for the award. It said,"One an Indian spacecraft has gone into orbit around Mars on the very first try (on Sept 24, 2014), which no other country has ever done.

Secondly, the spacecraft is in an elliptical orbit with a high apoapsis (point at which an orbiting object is farthest away from the body it is orbiting), and has a high resolution camera which is taking full-disk color imagery of Mars."

The statement further added,"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."

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