National Space Society Honors JPL's Voyager Team

Voyager 1, first to leave the solar system, continues its interstellar journey.

The National Space Society's Space Pioneer Award recognizes the JPL Voyager team for their amazing scientific and engineering achievements.— Bruce Pittman, NSS Senior Operating Officer

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, USA, April 26, 2018 / EINPresswire.com / -- For 41 years, the twin Voyager space probes, launched in 1977, have traversed the outer solar system and beyond. They carry humanity's message to the stars, etched onto gold disks carried onboard. Their journey into the depths of interstellar space will continue indefinitely.

To honor this unprecedented achievement, the National Space Society (NSS) announced today that the Jet Propulsion Laboratory team that designed, built and operated the Voyager spacecraft has been named the 2018 recipient of the NSS's 'Space Pioneer Award for Science and Engineering.'

The prestigious award will be presented to Dr. Michael Watkins, Director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, at the society's 37th annual International Space Development Conference, to be held at the Sheraton Gateway Los Angeles Hotel from May 24-27, 2018.

NSS Senior Operating Officer Bruce Pittman said, 'The two Voyager spacecraft, launched over 40 years ago, sent back amazing pictures of the outer solar system, including Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and the Saturnian moon Titan, bringing the majestic beauty of the outer planets to people around the world.'

Pittman continued, 'The fact that the Voyager spacecraft are still operational and sending back useful data is a great testament to the talent of the hundreds of scientists and engineers who worked so hard to make this incredible mission possible. The National Space Society's Space Pioneer Award recognizes the JPL Voyager team for their amazing scientific and engineering achievements.'

Also attending the conference are Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos, famed physicist Freeman Dyson, SETI pioneer Frank Drake, Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, SpaceX Propulsion CTO Tom Mueller, and key members of NASA/JPL's Cassini mission to Saturn Linda Spilker, John-Pierre Lebreton and Earl Maize. To see more on this stellar lineup of speakers, presenters and attendees, go to the ISDC website.

Past recipients of the Space Pioneer Award include: Elon Musk, Ray Bradbury, Robert Bigelow, Apollo Astronaut Russell L. Schweickart, Dr. Michael Griffin, the Rosetta Mission Team, the Kepler-K2 Team, and the New Horizons Mission Team.

The National Space institute was founded in 1975 by NASA's Wernher von Braun, father of the Saturn V rocket, and merged with the L5 Society, inspired by the pioneering work of Princeton physicist Gerard K. O'Neill in the same year, to create the National Space Society in 1987. It is the oldest continuously operating group striving to enable the exploration, development and settlement of space.

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