Citizen Staff Writer
IN BRIEF
RENÉE SCHAFER HORTON
rshorton@tucsoncitizen.com
The Space Foundation of Colorado Springs, Colo., is awarding its 2009 John L. “Jack” Swigert Jr. Award for Space Exploration to the University of Arizona-led Phoenix Mars Lander team for one of the “most startling and meaningful discoveries of the new millennium.”
Janet P. Stevens, director of communications and public outreach for the Space Foundation, said the organization chose the team because of the mission’s discovery of ice on the planet.
The NASA mission was headed by UA senior research scientist Peter H. Smith and was the first led by an academic scientist.
The award honors the memory of Apollo 13 command module pilot Jack Swigert, who brought the crew of the 1970 manned lunar-landing mission back to Earth despite an electrical explosion that crippled the craft.