ISRO’s Remarkable Recognition: Chandrayaan 3 Wins Indian of the Year Award 2023 in Outstanding Achievement Category.
In a noteworthy accolade, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has been honored with the “Indian of the Year Award” for 2023 in the ‘Outstanding Achievement’ category. The award, presented by Dr. Jitendra Singh, the Union Minister of State for Science & Technology, was handed over on January 11 in a ceremony held in New Delhi and broadcasted by a national TV channel. ISRO Chairman S. Somnath and Chandrayaan 3 Project Director Dr. P. Veeramuthuvel accepted the award, acknowledging ISRO’s significant contribution to space exploration, particularly highlighting the successful soft landing of Chandrayaan-3 on the Moon’s unexplored South Polar region in 2023.
Building on this success, Chandrayaan 3, ISRO’s lunar mission, has now received the prestigious Astro Award 2024 for its outstanding achievements in space exploration. This comes on the heels of the recent triumph with the Leif Erikson Lunar Prize, solidifying Chandrayaan 3’s reputation as the most inspirational, significant, and innovative space mission of 2023.
The Astro Awards, an annual event hosted by the renowned Science Communicator Tim Dodd, known as the Everyday Astronaut, celebrated its seventh year by recognizing outstanding accomplishments in space exploration. Unlike previous years, this edition featured an inaugural in-person ceremony.
Tim Dodd shed light on the selection process, revealing, “We polled people, receiving responses from the general public and our communities to gauge public interest. One mission stood out, making a global impact. The most important, innovative, and inspirational mission of 2023 goes to ISRO for Chandrayaan 3. This is a significant achievement because India is only the fourth country to achieve a soft landing on the Moon.”
The audience responded with laughter, underscoring the challenges of executing a soft, controlled landing on the Moon. Numerous missions, including SpaceIL’s Beresheet lander (2019), Japan’s Hakuto lander (April 2023), and Russia’s Luna 25 lander (August 2023), faced unfortunate crashes before Chandrayaan 3’s successful landing, emphasizing the difficulty of achieving a soft landing on the lunar surface.
Accepting the award on behalf of ISRO, the Consul General of India, DC Manjunath, expressed gratitude to Everyday Astronaut. Manjunath recalled Prime Minister Shree Narendra Modi’s announcement, stating, “Chandrayaan 3’s success belongs to the entire humanity,” and highlighted that the mission’s landing site is named Shiv Shakti. He further revealed that Chandrayaan 3’s data would be shared with the global scientific community, emphasizing India’s commitment to advancing space exploration on a global scale.
