News 2021

Oliver Ullrich, IAA Member section 3, received the Life Sciences Award 2023 of the International Academy of Astronautics on October 1st, 2023 in Baku, Azerbaijan. Photo: Elena Fomina (Russia), Oliver Ullrich (Germany), Jean-Michel Contant (France), Marius-Ioan Piso (Romania).

Anna Kussmaul, IAA Member section 3, received the Life Sciences Award 2021 of the International Academy of Astronautics on October 1st, 2023 in Baku, Azerbaijan. Photo: Anna Kussmaul (Russia), Elena Fomina (Russia), Jean-Michel Contant (France).

Please see our Media Section to access the most recent press releases issued by the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA). Announcements on IAA new members 2023 and IAA Awards 2023 are now available on the occasion of the October 1st, 2023 Academy Day. Please visit THE ACADEMY/MEDIA/IAA Press Releases Photo: IAA

Nickolay Smirnov, IAA Member section 2, received the Engineering Sciences Award 2020 of the International Academy of Astronautics on October 1st, 2023 in Baku, Azerbaijan. Photo: Marius-Ioan Piso (Romania), Nickolay Smirnov (Russia), Jean-Michel Contant (France).

Martha Mejia-Kaiser, IAA Member section 4, received the Social Sciences Book Award 2023 of the International Academy of Astronautics on October 1st, 2023 in Baku, Azerbaijan. The Geostationary Ring – Practice and Law Studies in Space Law, Martha Mejia-Kaiser. Photo: Marius-Ioan Piso (Romania), Martha Mejia-Kaiser (Mexico), Jean-Michel Contant (France).

Academy Day International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) Baku, Azerbaijan Sunday October 1st, 2023 Program 09h30  Opening of the Academy Day, John Schumacher, IAA President, 09h45 Laurels for Team Achievement to the International Artemis 1 Mission Team, NASA. 10h05 Laurels for Team Achievement to the Emirates Mars Mission Team, Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre/UAE Space Agency/Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Colorado Boulder, USA (Mohsen Al Awadhi) 11h00 Laurels for Team Achievement to the Chang’e-5 Team, CNSA (Wang Qiong, Ren Junjie) 11h45 Lunch (upon registration) Room B1-B2 13h00  32nd IAA Regular Meeting (restricted access) and Induction of the 2023-2025 Board of Trustees 14h45 SG 5.20 Establishing “Rules of the Road” for Satellite Collision Avoidance Maneuver Planning (David Spencer) 15h00 SG 3.30 Space & its Utility in Forecasting & Mitigating Climate Change (Roger Lenard) 15h15 SG 3.31 Solar Energy from Space: A Decadal Revisit to the first International Assessment of  Opportunities, Issues and Potential Pathways Forward (John Mankins) 15h30 SG 2.14 Medical Support for an International Human Expedition to Mars (Elena Fomina) 15h45 SG 3.35 Artificial Intelligence Technologies for Space (Pan Binfeng) 16h00 SG 1.16 Nowcasting Extreme Cosmic Ray Events (Xue Yong) 16h15 SG 4.27 Low cost highly autonomous small satellite constellation for deep space exploration (Yuichiro Nogawa) 16h30 SG 5.19 Opportunities for National Governments to Foster Space Traffic Management using the Space Sustainability Rating (Danielle Wood) 16h30 Discussion 17h00 End of Session 18h30 Cocktails (in advance registration) Mugam Club Restaurant, 9 H. Rzayeva Street part of Icheri Sheher, right by the Maiden Tower, Baku 1004 Azerbaijan 19h00 Induction Ceremonies for Newly Elected IAA Academicians (in advance registration) 19h45 Awards Gala Dinner (in advance registration) 21h15 Awards 22h30 End Photo: IAA

Rainer Sandau, IAA Member of the Engineering Sciences, received the Engineering Sciences Book Award 2023 of the International Academy of Astronautics on October 1st, 2023 in Baku, Azerbaijan. High Resolution Optical Satellite Imagery (2nd edition), Ian Dowman, Karsten Jacobsen, Gottfried Konecny and Rainer Sandau (editors). Photo: Marius-Ioan Piso (Romania), Rainer Sandau (Germany), Jean-Michel Contant (France).

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 Chang'e-5 Mission Team. The 2023 Laurels for Team Achievements are given to the Chang’e-5 Team. During the 23-day mission, the Chang’e-5 team successfully completed a complex mission including rocket launching, lunar-earth transfer, lunar sampling, lunar surface takeoff, rendezvous and docking sample transfer, skip re-entry and other processes, and obtained two types of lunar samples of lunar surface sampling and drilling sampling, making outstanding contributions to human lunar and deep space exploration. Through the Chang’e-5 mission, we discovered a new lunar mineral Chang’e-stone, revealed the existence of magmatic activity on the Moon up to 2 billion years, and found a high content of solar wind-caused water. Photo: Chang'e-5 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 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).