Washington DC, May 22 -- India's Chandrayaan-3 lunar mission has been honoured with the 2026 Goddard Astronautics Award by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), presented in Washington DC on May 21.

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 mission delivered critical data to support future human missions to the Moon and confirmed the presence of key chemical elements in the lunar south polar soil, pointing to local resources that could one day sustain manufacturing operations on the surface.

India's Ambassador t...