NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal
Encyclopedia
The NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal is an award of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration that was established in 1991. The medal is awarded to both civilian members of NASA and military astronaut
Astronaut
An astronaut or cosmonaut is a person trained by a human spaceflight program to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a spacecraft....

s.

To be awarded the NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal, a NASA employee must make substantial contributions characterized by a substantial and significant improvement in operations, efficiency, service, financial savings, science, or technology which directly contribute to the mission of NASA. For civilians, the decoration is typically bestowed to mid-level and senior NASA administrators who have supervised at least four to five successful NASA missions. Astronauts may be awarded the decoration after two to three space flights.

Due to the prestige of the NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal, it is authorized as a military decoration
Awards and decorations of the United States military
Awards and decorations of the United States Military are military decorations which recognize service and personal accomplishments while a member of the United States armed forces...

 for display on active duty military uniforms upon application from the service member to the various branch of the military in which they serve.

Notable recipients

  • Chris Adami
    Chris Adami
    Christoph Carl Herbert Adami is a professor at Michigan State University. He is best known for his work on Avida, an artificial life simulator used to study evolutionary biology. He received the NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal while serving at JPL...

     Jet Propulsion Laboratory
    Jet Propulsion Laboratory
    Jet Propulsion Laboratory is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center located in the San Gabriel Valley area of Los Angeles County, California, United States. The facility is headquartered in the city of Pasadena on the border of La Cañada Flintridge and Pasadena...

    , physicist
  • Richard Arenstorf
    Richard Arenstorf
    Richard F. Arenstorf is an American mathematician who discovered a stable orbit between the Earth and the Moon, called an Arenstorf Orbit, which was the basis of the orbit used by the Apollo Program for going to the Moon.The Arenstorf Orbit...

     Vanderbilt University
    Vanderbilt University
    Vanderbilt University is a private research university located in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1873, the university is named for shipping and rail magnate "Commodore" Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided Vanderbilt its initial $1 million endowment despite having never been to the...

    , mathematician
  • Gordon Cooper
    Gordon Cooper
    Leroy Gordon Cooper, Jr. , also known as Gordon Cooper, was an American aeronautical engineer, test pilot and NASA astronaut. Cooper was one of the seven original astronauts in Project Mercury, the first manned space effort by the United States...

    , astronaut
  • Carl Sagan
    Carl Sagan
    Carl Edward Sagan was an American astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, science popularizer and science communicator in astronomy and natural sciences. He published more than 600 scientific papers and articles and was author, co-author or editor of more than 20 books...

    , astronomer
  • Alan Shepard
    Alan Shepard
    Alan Bartlett Shepard, Jr. was an American naval aviator, test pilot, flag officer, and NASA astronaut who in 1961 became the second person, and the first American, in space. This Mercury flight was designed to enter space, but not to achieve orbit...

    , astronaut

Selected recipients by year

There are usually more than 100 recipients of this medal each year. For example, there were 177 recipients in 2010.
  • Prem Chand Pandey
    Prem Chand Pandey
    Prem Chand Pandey is an Indian scientist and academic in the fields of Satellite Oceanography, Remote Sensing, Atmospheric Science, Antarctic and Climate Change.-Education and career:...

    , Jet Propulsion Laboratory
    Jet Propulsion Laboratory
    Jet Propulsion Laboratory is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center located in the San Gabriel Valley area of Los Angeles County, California, United States. The facility is headquartered in the city of Pasadena on the border of La Cañada Flintridge and Pasadena...

    , 1985 (NASA Certificate of Recognition and Cash Award)
  • David Rochblatt, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
    Jet Propulsion Laboratory
    Jet Propulsion Laboratory is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center located in the San Gabriel Valley area of Los Angeles County, California, United States. The facility is headquartered in the city of Pasadena on the border of La Cañada Flintridge and Pasadena...

     Engineer, 1995
  • Jon T. Adams, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
    Jet Propulsion Laboratory
    Jet Propulsion Laboratory is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center located in the San Gabriel Valley area of Los Angeles County, California, United States. The facility is headquartered in the city of Pasadena on the border of La Cañada Flintridge and Pasadena...

    , NASA Scatterometer Radio Frequency Subsystem, 1997
  • Gary A. Flandro, University of Tennessee
    University of Tennessee
    The University of Tennessee is a public land-grant university headquartered at Knoxville, Tennessee, United States...

     UTSI, 1998
  • Keith Presson, Marshall Space Flight Center
    Marshall Space Flight Center
    The George C. Marshall Space Flight Center is the U.S. government's civilian rocketry and spacecraft propulsion research center. The largest center of NASA, MSFC's first mission was developing the Saturn launch vehicles for the Apollo moon program...

     MPLM Project Office, 2005
  • Robert Sherwood, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
    Jet Propulsion Laboratory
    Jet Propulsion Laboratory is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center located in the San Gabriel Valley area of Los Angeles County, California, United States. The facility is headquartered in the city of Pasadena on the border of La Cañada Flintridge and Pasadena...

     Autonomous Sciencecraft Project Manager, 2005
  • Michael Dalton, Kennedy Space Center
    Kennedy Space Center
    The John F. Kennedy Space Center is the NASA installation that has been the launch site for every United States human space flight since 1968. Although such flights are currently on hiatus, KSC continues to manage and operate unmanned rocket launch facilities for America's civilian space program...

     Computer Systems Engineer, 2007
  • Michael A. Gross, Jet Propulsion Laboratory Phoenix Project Payload Manager, 2009
  • Ryan M. Lien, Johnson Space Center Lead ISS CAPCOM Increment 17, 2009
  • Eric Becker, Dryden Flight Research Center
    Dryden Flight Research Center
    The Dryden Flight Research Center , located inside Edwards Air Force Base, is an aeronautical research center operated by NASA. On March 26, 1976 it was named in honor of the late Hugh L. Dryden, a prominent aeronautical engineer who at the time of his death in 1965 was NASA's deputy administrator...

    SOFIA Operations Lead, 2009
  • Jonathan H. Jiang, Jet Propulsion Laboratory Research Scientist, 2010
  • Gustavo Carreno, Dryden Flight Research Center SOFIA Project Telescope Lead, 2011
  • Philip Hall, Dryden Flight Research Center Global Hawk Deputy Project Manager, 2011
  • Eddie Zavala, Dryden Flight Research Center SOFIA Project Deputy Program Manager, 2011

External links

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