PARIS — China's Tianwen-1 Mars mission team has won this year's International Astronautical Federation (IAF) World Space Award, an award recognizing a person or a team for exceptional contributions to space exploration.

The Tianwen-1 team carried out China's first Mars exploration mission, which has achieved rich scientific results.

"The rover has performed very excellently. You've already seen the papers published, looking at the water activity on Mars. And it is just a very interesting accomplishment. And we all congratulate China for this success." Pascale Ehrenfreund, president of the International Astronautical Federation said.

The IAF said the team has made outstanding contributions to the advancement of Mars exploration and has boosted the development of deep space exploration technology.