BY A STAFF REPORTER

PASADENA, CA - Two distinguished aerospace leaders are the recipients of the 25th annual International von Kármán Wings Award. Receiving the honor this year at the ceremony of the Caltech Company were Abdul Kalam, the 11th President of India and Distinguished Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, and Yannick d’Escatha, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES), the agency responsible for shaping France’s space policy.

This is the 25th year that the International von Kármán Wings Award has been given by the Aerospace Historical Society (AHS), which is now apart of the Graduate Aerospace Laboratories at Caltech (GALCIT). The award has a rich heritage in the preservation of world aerospace history and the recognition of renowned aerospace pioneers and luminaries.

“GALCIT is proud and privileged to be the home of the Aerospace Historical Society,” said G. Ravi Ravichandran, Director of the Graduate Aerospace Laboratories and the John E. Goode, Jr., Professor of Aeronautics and Mechanical Engineering. “It is an honor to give this award, named after the founding director of GALCIT and the founder of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, to Abdul Kalam and Yannick d’Escatha.”

Abdul Kalam was described as an “international leader and humanitarian who is honored and admired by the next generation” and Yannick d’Escatha as a “visionary who is using space and technology to bring about collaboration and peace.”  

One example of the honorees’ collaborative efforts is the Megha-Tropiques weather satellite, a joint project of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) and the French Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES).