Gallery Of Laureates 2024 Winners - Space

In a three-part relay race, Firefly and Millennium coordinated to launch a satellite for the U.S. Space Force in an unprecedented demonstration of rapid response. Millennium had 60 hr. to transport the satellite to Vandenberg SFB, California, fuel it and install a payload adaptor for launch by Firefly’s Alpha rocket 27 hr. later. A day and a half after that, the satellite was ready to begin a space domain awareness mission.

Credit: Firefly Aerospace

Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) Chairman Sreedhara Somanath brought India’s space program back from the loss of its Chandrayaan-2 lunar lander in 2019 to become the fourth nation to land a rover on the Moon, landing the farthest south of any mission yet. The mission confirmed the presence of water in that region of the Moon as well as the presence of sulfur near the lunar South Pole—all at a cost of $75 million.

Credit: ISRO

NASA’s $1 billion Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (Osiris-Rex) fulfilled its primary mission, collecting and delivering pristine samples from the primordial asteroid Bennu. Lockheed developed sample collection hardware that acted as a “reverse vacuum,” blowing compressed nitrogen gas to stir up dust and dirt from the asteroid and collect it in a canister for return to Earth in September 2023.

Credit: Lockheed Martin

In 2020, Elon Musk mused that his Starlink constellation of low-Earth-orbit communication satellites might bankrupt his otherwise successful launch company SpaceX. Three years later and with more than 5,000 satellites orbited, Starlink is providing commercial high-speed internet access globally. Though controversial, Starlink has been used by Ukraine in its war against Russia, and the U.S. has contracted to use its military Starshield service.

Credit: SpaceX

Parlaying hard lessons from the space shuttle program, Moses joined Virgin Galactic from NASA in 2011 to help the startup backed by Richard Branson create and operate a safe, reliable, commercially viable space transportation service suitable for nonprofessional astronauts. It took years longer than expected, but the company began commercial operations in June 2023. Moses has served as Virgin Galactic’s president since 2016.

Credit: Purdue University