AOA

Award Criteria

This award is presented for outstanding efforts in overcoming space operations and/or support challenges, and recognizes those teams whose exceptional contributions were critical to the success of one or more space missions. The major areas of consideration for the award are:

i. Critical to an anomaly recovery, crew rescue, or saving of a space mission.ii. Development of a new paradigm that has significant effect on the space operations field.iii. Instrumental in significantly reducing the cost of space operations.

Award Description and Rewards

a. A trophy shall be awarded for the winning team. The host organization shall receive the trophy. The trophy shall be engraved with the name, organization and/or names of team members, and date of the award. The trophy shall have a presentation box. If the award is won by a joint team, a second trophy may be purchased from AIAA.

b. A certificate (signed by SpaceOps Chair of the Conference and Awards Group Chair) shall be presented to each individual on which is printed a citation of up to 25 words. The certificate shall be in a presentation folder.

c. The team leader shall be offered a complimentary full registration to the conference at which the award will be presented. If the team leader is unable to attend the conference, then the team may send another team member in their place with the complimentary registration, as long as that person will be able to receive the award at the awards ceremony.

d. The awardee team shall be invited to write a paper about the event for which the award was made to be reviewed and published in the Space Operations Communicator.

Specific Rules and Regulations

a. The SpaceOps Outstanding Achievement award shall be biennial and presented at the biennial SpaceOps Conference at an event involving the entire conference (such as plenary session or banquet).

b. Only one (1) award shall be made biennially.

c. A maximum of 10 members may be on a nominated team, and a team leader must be designated.

d. The SpaceOps Organization shall issue a call for nominations the year before the conference. However, SpaceOps shall not call for nominations until the AIAA Space Operations and Support award has been presented in order to avoid confusion.

e. Past recipients of the AIAA Space Operations and Support Award are not eligible for the SpaceOps Outstanding Achievement Award unless it is for a distinctly different accomplishment.

f. The event for which the award is bestowed shall not have occurred more than five (5) years prior to the conference at which the award will be presented. A waiver for this rule may be granted upon a majority vote by the Awards Group subcommittee (minimum of three voting members).

g. Anyone may submit nominations for this award except for a current member of the Awards Group. Neither the nominator nor any member of the nominated team needs to be a member of SpaceOps or AIAA.