ISRO wins US award for 'Mangalyaan' mission

The 2015 Space Pioneer Award in the category of Science and Engineering will be given to India's Mars Orbiter programme responsible for the development and deployment of "Mangalyaan," said US based National Space Society (NSS).

A representative from ISRO will receive the award in the National Space Society's 2015 International Space Development Conference that will run from May 20 till May 24. It will be held in Toronto, Canada.

India's Mars Orbiter Mission (MoM) was launched on November 5, 2013 that was placed into Mars orbit on September 24, 2014.

The mission accomplished two significant firsts, the first one being that an Indian spacecraft had been positioned into orbit around the red planet in the first attempt. No other nation has ever achieved this.

Secondly, the spacecraft is in an elliptical orbit with a high apoapsis, and also has a high resolution camera that is clicking full-disk colour pictures of the red planet.

The statement read that Mylswamy Annadurai leads the Mars Orbiter programme team located in Bangalore.

The NSS is an autonomous non-profit educational membership organisation committed to the establishment of a spacefaring civilization.