Phoenix Mars Lander Team Wins Swigert Award for Space Exploration

The Space Foundation has awarded its 2009 John L. "Jack" Swigert, Jr., Award [below] for Space Exploration to NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander team "in recognition of the technical developments that led to one of the most startling and meaningful discoveries of the new millennium." The award will be presented at the foundation's 25th National Space Symposium to be held in Colorado Springs, Colo., on March 30.

The team that designed, developed, landed and operated the Phoenix Mars Lander was a collaboration of the UA; NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory; Lockheed Martin Space Systems; the Canadian Space Agency; the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland; the universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus, Denmark; Germany's Max Planck Institute; and the Finnish Meteorological Institute.

The award also recognizes the management of the program. This is the first NASA mission to employ a management structure with a single lead scientist from an academic institution, the University of Arizona.

[Much of this post is taken from a press release by Lori Stiles at UA]