After shortlisting more than 28000 essays written by K-12 students from every state in the United States. NASA finally named its newest Mars Rover ‘Perseverance’. NASA officially announced the name after concluding the contest.
Alex Mather, a student from Lake Braddock Secondary School in Virginia, proposed the name Perseverance. Mather read his essay aloud during the concluding event. NASA urged the common public to vote for their favorite, however, NASA’s Director Of Science Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen, made the final decision.
Call me Perseverance.
I’m headed for Mars: driven to search for signs of ancient life, test new tech to help future human explorers, and collect the first rock samples for future return to Earth.
Follow me. Let’s go. https://t.co/7w3rbvbyoL#Mars2020
— NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) March 5, 2020
During the announcement, Dr. Thomas, said, “Curiosity is what we need when we explore. But there has never been exploration, never been making history, without perseverance. Perseverance and curiosity together is what exploration is all about.”
The 2020 rover introduces many new technologies, formulated by the space agency in order to progress the rover’s ability to navigate the Martian surface. Perseverance also enables it to take photographs of the surface while landing and compare it to pre-installed orbital maps. With numerous onboard microphones, the Perseverance is also enabled to capture the first audio samples from Mars.