On the occasion of the Academy Day Baku held on October 1st, 2023, the IAA 2023 Laurels for Team Achievement Award was presented to the Emirates Mars Mission Team. The 2023 Laurels for Team Achievement is presented to the international team of engineers, scientists, and managers who, through an extraordinary knowledge partnership, co-developed the Emirates Mars Mission, the first interplanetary mission by an Arab nation, in order to advance our understanding of the Martian atmosphere through synoptic images across all times of day. The Emirates Mars Mission was developed by an international team of 450 engineers, scientists, instrument specialists and project managers, with members from the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre in Dubai, UAE, the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado Boulder, Arizona State University and the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley. This team of outstanding individuals drove the development and operation of the mission at a remarkable pace and with significant innovation. This unique combination of talents was managed as a single, integrated team to deliver an interplanetary mission with a revolutionary approach to mission design, management and execution. With its innovative elliptical orbit and three scientific instruments, the Emirates Mars Mission Hope probe is the first spacecraft at Mars able to make synoptic images across all times of day at visible, thermal infrared and far ultraviolet wavelengths. Photo: Emirates Mars Mission Team.

On the occasion of the Academy Day Baku held on October 1st, 2023, the IAA 2023 Laurels for Team Achievement Award was presented to the International Artemis 1 Mission Team. The 2023 Laurels for Team Achievement recognizing extraordinary performance and achievement by a team of scientists, engineers, technicians, and managers in the field of Astronautics, are given to the Artemis 1 Team. The highly successful international Artemis 1 flight test mission lasted for 25.5 days and traveled over 1.4 million miles on a journey from Earth to the Moon and beyond; and then a safe return to Earth. The Artemis 1 mission proved that NASA’s Space Launch System deep Space rocket, Orion spacecraft, and the ground systems needed for launch and recovery are ready to fly astronauts on missions to the Moon. The SLS rocket flew as designed and with precision; the Orion spacecraft and European Service Module successfully completed all test objectives during a journey of nearly 270,000 miles beyond the Moon and farther than any spacecraft built for humans has flown. The Artemis program is intended to be the broadest and most diverse international human space exploration coalition in history. Photo: John Schumacher (USA), Jean-Michel Contant (France), Elena Fomina (Russia), Marius-Ioan Piso (Romania), Ralph McNutt (USA) and Amit Kshatriya (USA).

SMOPS-2023: International Conference on Spacecraft Mission Operations was held on June 08-09, 2023 in Bangalore, India. Theme of the Conference was Emerging Technologies and Automation in Space Mission Operations and Ground Segment. Many participants gathered to cover a wide range of topics related to mission operations management, advanced mission design, automation, large constellations management, present and future trends in ground station operations, futuristic techniques in both upstream and downstream segments, etc... To access the video of the opening ceremony, please visit the SMOPS conference website in EVENTS / PORTFOLIO OF IAA CONFERENCES / IAA-ISRO-ASI Intl. Conf. on Spacecraft Mission Operations Photo: Opening Ceremony, Bangalore, India.

The 8th IAA Planetary Defense Conference took place in Vienna, Austria on 3-7 April 2023 at the Vienna International Centre and the Austrian Academy of Sciences, in cooperation with ESA, the Commission for Geosciences of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and UNOOSA. The Conference report is now available. The opening ceremony and all other sessions were recorded and are also available on the conference website. The DART mission was presented on this occasion and the video of this event held at the Austrian Academy of Sciences is also available online. To access the videos and the report, please visit the PDC conference website in EVENTS / PORTFOLIO OF IAA CONFERENCES / IAA Planetary Defense Conference Photo: Planetary Defense Conference 2023 participants, group picture.

The IAA Board of Trustees held its 125th meeting in Paris, France on March 28, 2023 at the IAA Headquarters. Photo: Athena Coustenis (France), Elena Fomina (Russia), John Schumacher (USA), Chrysoula Kourtidou-Papadeli (Greece), Ralph McNutt (USA), Jean-Michel Contant (France), Marius-Ioan Piso (Romania), Shigeki Kinai (Japan), Olivier Contant (France), Miguel Bello-Mora (Spain), Lev Zelenyi (Russia) and Junichiro Kawaguchi (Japan).

IAA Newly Elected Corresponding Members and Full Members together with IAA Section 1 Book Award recipient received their certificates on Monday 27 March 2023 in Paris, France during the IAA Award Dinner ceremony. Photo: IAA Vice-President Finance Shigeki Kinai (Japan), IAA President John Schumacher (USA), IAA Member Section 2 Paolo Gaudenzi (italy), IAA Vice-President Awards & Membership Chrysoula Kourtidou-Papadeli (Greece), IAA Vice-President Scientific Activities Marius-Ioan Piso (Romania), IAA Member Section 4 Takashi Maemura (Japan), IAA Section 1 Chair Ralph McNutt (USA), IAA Book Award Section 1 Claudio Maccone (Italy), IAA Corresponding Member Section 2 Tiago Rebelo (Portugal), IAA Member Section 2 Vesselin Vassilev (Bulgaria), IAA Corresponding Member Section 2 Elcio Jeronimo de Oliveira (Brazil), IAA Corresponding Member Section 2 Valery Aksamentov (USA), IAA Corresponding Member Section 2 Jean-Marie Betermier (France) and IAA Secretary General Jean-Michel Contant (France).

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