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NASA's Mars 2020 Rover Closer to Getting Its Name NASA's Mars
2020 rover is one step closer to having its own name after 155 students across
the U.S. were chosen as semifinalists in the "Name the Rover" essay contest.
Just one will be selected to win the grand prize - the exciting honor of naming
the rover and an invitation to see the spacecraft launch in July 2020 from Cape
Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
The currently
unnamed rover is a robotic scientist weighing more than 2,300 pounds (1,000
kilograms). It will search for signs of past microbial life, characterize the
planet's climate and geology, collect samples for future return to Earth and
pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet.
"This
rover is the first leg of a round-trip mission to Mars that will advance
understanding in key science fields like astrobiology," said Lori Glaze,
director of NASA's Planetary Science Division. "This contest is a cool way
to engage the next generation and encourage careers in all STEM fields. The
chosen name will help define this rover's unique personality among our fleet of
Martian spacecraft."
With more than 28,000
essay submissions received from K-12 students, NASA recruited volunteer contest
judges from every U.S. state and territory. Nearly 4,700 eligible judge volunteers
were selected from a diverse pool of educators, professionals, and space
enthusiasts and were instrumental in selecting the semifinalists.
The next phases
of judging will reduce the competition to nine finalists, and the public will
have an opportunity to vote for their favorite name online in late January. The
results of the poll will be a consideration in the final naming selection.
The nine
finalists will talk with a panel of experts, including Glaze, NASA astronaut
Jessica Watkins, NASA
JPL rover driver Nick Wiltsie and Clara Ma, who proposed the name for the Mars
Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity, as a sixth-grade student in 2009. The
grand prize winner will be announced in early March 2020.
For complete
contest and prize details, including a full listing of the 155 state/territory semifinalists,
visit:
https://www.futureengineers.org/nametherover
The naming
contest partnership is part of a Space Act Agreement in educational and public
outreach efforts between NASA, Battelle of Columbus, Ohio, and Future Engineers
of Burbank, California.
NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in Pasadena, California, manages rover development for the agency.
The Launch Services Program at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida is
responsible for launch management.
Mars 2020 is
part of a larger program that includes missions to the Moon as a way to prepare
for human exploration of the Red Planet. Charged with returning astronauts to
the Moon by 2024, NASA will establish a sustained human presence on and around
the Moon by 2028 through NASA's Artemis
lunar exploration plans.
For more
information about the mission, go to:
https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/
For more about
NASA's Moon to Mars plans, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/topics/moon-to-mars
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