ISRO bags Leif Erikson Lunar Prize for Chandrayaan-3

New Delhi: ISRO has been awarded the 2023 Leif Erikson Lunar Prize by the Exploration Museum in Iceland’s Husavik for its successful Chandrayaan-3 mission.

The award celebrates the first soft-landing of a spacecraft near the lunar south pole and “ISRO’s indomitable spirit in advancing lunar exploration and contributing to understanding celestial mysteries,” the Embassy of India in Reykjavik said in a post on X.

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman S Somanath sent a “thank you” video message on the occasion and the prize was received on behalf of the space agency by Ambassador B Shyam.

The Leif Erikson Award is an annual prize given by the Exploration Museum since 2015. It is named after Leif Erikson — a Norse explorer thought to be the first European to set foot on continental America, almost four centuries before the expedition of Christopher Columbus.

Chandrayaan-3 was India’s third mission to the moon, and the second attempt to carry out a soft-landing on the lunar surface. ISRO managed to place the Vikram lander on the lunar surface and roll out the robotic rover, Pragyaan.