Chandrayaan-3 receives 2026 AIAA Goddard Astronautics Award

New Delhi ( Vivek Ojha) : India’s Chandrayaan-3 lunar mission has been honoured with the prestigious 2026 Goddard Astronautics Award by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), presented in Washington DC on May 21.

India’s Ambassador to the United States, His Excellency Vinay Kwatra, accepted the award on behalf of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) at the AIAA ASCEND 2026 Conference.

On August 23, 2023, Chandrayaan-3 made history as the first spacecraft to achieve a soft landing near the Moon’s south pole — a region of immense scientific and strategic importance that had never before been explored at the surface level.

The Goddard Astronautics Award is the highest honour AIAA bestows for notable achievements in the field of astronautics. The award is presented to an individual or team. Team nominations include a listing of contributors, from which two at most are designated as representatives to formally accept the award.

It was endowed by Mrs Goddard to commemorate her husband, Robert H. Goddard, rocket visionary, pioneer, bold experimentalist, and superb engineer, whose early liquid rocket engine launches set the stage for the development of astronautics.

The award received its current form in 1975, when the institute changed the name and widened the selection criteria of its former Goddard Award (which had been bestowed for contributions in the engineering science of propulsion and energy conversion).