Moroccan Scientist Kamal Oudrhiri Wins NASA Exceptional Service Medal

Moroccan Kamal Oudrhiri, one of the most decorated NASA scientists in the last two decades, was awarded another decoration, the NASA Exceptional Service Medal.

First Moroccan to be hired by NASA some twenty years ago, Kamal Oudrhiri, head of NASA’s planetary studies department, was honored with the exceptional service medal in recognition of his numerous contributions to NASA projects and programs and his many achievements throughout his two decades of service at NASA.

“It was a great honor to have been awarded the NASA Exceptional Service Medal this week. It has been an amazing journey to work alongside so many of the brilliant minds that have contributed to NASA’s missions,” said Oudrhiri on a Facebook post.

Over the past two decades, Kamal Oudrhiri has held leadership positions in several major NASA missions. Among them, Mars Exploration Rovers (MER), the GRAIL mission, the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), the Juno Jupiter mission…

The scientist took part in various cutting-edge projects such as the Atoms Cooled Laboratory, the Mars InSight mission; MarCO, Cubesat’s first interplanetary mission; the MAVEN (ROSE) radio-occultation scientific experiment, as well as the so-called “New Horizons Ultima Thule” mission, the first flyover of the Kuiper Belt, a distant and hitherto unexplored land, distant more than a billion kilometers from Pluto.

Talking to the media about his NASA missions, Oudrhiri said “I work closely with scientists from NASA’s various centers in the areas of communication, radio science, radar and Quantum technologies to develop the next generation of spacecraft and ground infrastructure needed to support NASA’s future human and robotic space mission objectives.”

Since the beginning of his career at the US agency, the Moroccan scientist has received three NASA JPL Mariner honors, three JPL Voyager honor awards and 39 Group Achievement Awards (five such awards just this year), and the People Leadership Award, which recognizes exceptional people-leadership skills critical to the ongoing success of the NASA exploration missions, making him one of the most decorated NASA employees in the last two decades.

In 2012, King Mohammed VI awarded the scientist a royal decoration for his scientific achievements.