Moroccan scientist, Kamal Oudrhiri, receives prestigious award
THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF AERONAUTICS AND ASTRONAUTICS (AIAA) AWARDED ONE OF ITS MOST COVETED PRIZES IN THE FIELD OF SPACE SCIENCE TO THE “COLD ATOM LAB” MISSION LED BY THE MOROCCAN SCIENTIST.
According to Kamal Oudrhiri, The IAA Awards acknowledged the “COLD LAB ATOM” mission “for developing and delivering the highly innovative Cold Atom Laboratory to the ISS and for seminal scientific achievements.”
Project and Mission Leader, Kamal Oudrhiri congratulated everyone who helped design, build, and successfully operate this very first quantum physics laboratory in space.
Oudrhiri also emphasized the importance of teamwork and work ethics and how they contributed to the mission’s success by adding the following “The Cold Atom Lab project depends on the work of an entire team and the commitment to excellence of all those involved in this high-tech lab with the goal of fostering great science that expands our understanding of Earth. and the universe around us”
The Cold Atom Lab has been operating on the International Space Station since July 2018. Its main mission is to create an extremely cold microgravity environment in order to study the behavior of atoms in these conditions.
The lab also cools atoms to near absolute zero, minus 459 degrees Fahrenheit, colder than any other known location in the natural universe.
“The experiments carried out at these extreme temperatures help us to understand how our world works at the smallest scale”, the Moroccan scientist specifies.
As a multi-purpose facility, COLD ATOM LAB is made up of a very prestigious scientific team that includes three Nobel Prize winners.
The awards given by the AIAA organization reflect its commitment to ensuring that aerospace professionals are recognized and celebrated for their achievements, innovations, and discoveries that “make the world safer, more connected, more accessible and more prosperous”
While working at Nasa for 20 years, Kamal Oudrhiri played major roles in multiple of its missions, notably those related to Mars exploration vehicles, namely “Curiosity”, “Rovers”, “Spirit” and “Opportunity”, including the international missions “Cassini” for the planet Saturn, “Grail” for the moon and “Juno” for Jupiter.
Prior to this award, Oudrhiri has been previously awarded the prestigious Medal for Exceptional Service, in recognition of the sustained performance and multiple contributions of this scientist to NASA projects and programs.