Twenty-eight thousand students across the United States submitted
essays and proposed names for NASA’s newest Mars rover and on Thursday March 05,2020,
the agency announced the winner: Perseverance, submitted by Virginia
seventh-grader Alexander Mather
The $2 billion Perseverance rover, built at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., is undergoing final processing at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida before launch in July on a seven-month voyage to the red planet
Following in the tire tracks of NASA’s Curiosity rover, which has shown Mars once hosted a habitable environment, Perseverance will search for signs of past microbial life and collect rock and soil samples that NASA and the European Space Agency hope to eventually return to Earth for detailed laboratory analysis
Up until Thursday, NASA’s newest rover was known simply as Mars 2020. But last August, NASA opened a nationwide “Name the Rover” contest open to K-12 school students. Some 28,000 entries were submitted and 4,700 volunteer judges narrowed the list down to 155
In January 2020, nine finalists were announced: Perseverance, Clarity, Courage, Endurance, Fortitude, Ingenuity, Promise, Tenacity and Vision.
The public then cast 770,000 votes and Wednesday night March 04,2020, Mather found out his entry had won.
In a NASA television broadcast Thursday, he read his essay to classmates at Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke, Virginia. He came up with Perseverance while considering earlier Mars robots like Curiosity, the Spirit, Opportunity and Pathfinder/Sojourner rovers that preceded it and the Insight lander currently at work on Mars.
“Curiosity, Insight, Spirit, Opportunity,” he read. “If you think about it, all of these names of past Mars rovers are qualities we possess as humans. We’re always curious and seek opportunity. We have the spirit and insight to explore the moon, Mars and beyond.
The $2 billion Perseverance rover, built at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., is undergoing final processing at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida before launch in July on a seven-month voyage to the red planet
Following in the tire tracks of NASA’s Curiosity rover, which has shown Mars once hosted a habitable environment, Perseverance will search for signs of past microbial life and collect rock and soil samples that NASA and the European Space Agency hope to eventually return to Earth for detailed laboratory analysis
Up until Thursday, NASA’s newest rover was known simply as Mars 2020. But last August, NASA opened a nationwide “Name the Rover” contest open to K-12 school students. Some 28,000 entries were submitted and 4,700 volunteer judges narrowed the list down to 155
In January 2020, nine finalists were announced: Perseverance, Clarity, Courage, Endurance, Fortitude, Ingenuity, Promise, Tenacity and Vision.
The public then cast 770,000 votes and Wednesday night March 04,2020, Mather found out his entry had won.
In a NASA television broadcast Thursday, he read his essay to classmates at Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke, Virginia. He came up with Perseverance while considering earlier Mars robots like Curiosity, the Spirit, Opportunity and Pathfinder/Sojourner rovers that preceded it and the Insight lander currently at work on Mars.
“Curiosity, Insight, Spirit, Opportunity,” he read. “If you think about it, all of these names of past Mars rovers are qualities we possess as humans. We’re always curious and seek opportunity. We have the spirit and insight to explore the moon, Mars and beyond.
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