{"id":12612,"date":"2020-03-05T20:27:16","date_gmt":"2020-03-05T12:27:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/seventh-grader-wins-contest-to-name-new-mars-rover-perseverance\/"},"modified":"2020-03-05T20:27:16","modified_gmt":"2020-03-05T12:27:16","slug":"seventh-grader-wins-contest-to-name-new-mars-rover-perseverance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/seventh-grader-wins-contest-to-name-new-mars-rover-perseverance\/","title":{"rendered":"Seventh-grader wins contest to name new Mars rover: Perseverance"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Alexander Mather, a seventh-grade student in Virginia, reads his winning essay proposing the name \u201cPerseverance\u201d for NASA\u2019s next Mars rover. Credit: NASA\/Aubrey Gemignani<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Twenty-eight thousand students across the United States submitted essays and proposed names for NASA\u2019s newest Mars rover and on Thursday, the agency announced the winner: Perseverance, submitted by Virginia seventh-grader Alexander Mather.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Following in the tire tracks of NASA\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Up until Thursday, NASA\u2019s newest rover was known simply as Mars 2020. But last August, NASA opened a nationwide \u201cName the Rover\u201d contest open to K-12 school students. Some 28,000 entries were submitted and 4,700 volunteer judges narrowed the list down to 155.<\/p>\n

In January, nine finalists were announced: Perseverance, Clarity, Courage, Endurance, Fortitude, Ingenuity, Promise, Tenacity and Vision. The public then cast 770,000 votes and Wednesday night, Mather found out his entry had won.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Members of the Mars 2020 team pose with the Perseverance rover, with a newly-installed name plate, at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Credit: NASA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cCuriosity, Insight, Spirit, Opportunity,\u201d he read. \u201cIf you think about it, all of these names of past Mars rovers are qualities we possess as humans. We\u2019re always curious and seek opportunity. We have the spirit and insight to explore the moon, Mars and beyond.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut if rovers are to be the qualities of us as a race, we miss the most important thing: Perseverance. We as humans evolved as creatures who could learn to adapt to any situation, no matter how harsh. We are a species of explorers, and we will meet many setbacks on the way to Mars. However, we can persevere. We, not as a nation, but as humans will not give up. The human race will always persevere into the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he became interested in space when his parents sent him to Space Camp near the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Driving up to the facility, a huge Saturn 5 moon rocket came into view.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs you\u2019re driving up to the campus, there\u2019s this building that is blocking the view of \u2026 the Saturn 5,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd as you drive up to the campus, you see the capsule of the Saturn 5 slowly rise above the building, and 11-year-old me saw that and lost his mind.<\/p>\n

\u201cI immediately knew that space is something I was doing for the rest of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

After high school, \u201cI want to go to college, get a degree in some form of engineering or science, space engineering and astronautics sound good right now. Then after that, go work at NASA as an engineer.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the \u201cName the Rover\u201d contest winner, Mather and his family will be flown to Cape Canaveral as guests of NASA to view the launch of Perseverance atop an Atlas 5 rocket. The planetary launch window opens on July 17.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Artist\u2019s concept of the Perseverance rover. Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If all goes well, the rover will land Feb. 18, 2021, on or near an ancient river delta where water once flowed into a 30-mile-wide, 1,600-foot-deep crater to search for signs of ancient microbial life and to continue ongoing studies of the planet\u2019s history and habitability.<\/p>\n

Equipped with 28 cameras, a suite of seven state-of-the-art instruments and a robot arm, Perseverance will collect rock and soil samples, seal them in small containers and cache them for collection by a future NASA rover.<\/p>\n

Assuming the follow-on mission is funded, the lander that brings the NASA \u201cfetch\u201d rover to the surface would feature a small rocket to boost the collected samples into orbit. Yet another spacecraft, built by the European Space Agency, then would scoop up the sample container and bring it back to Earth.<\/p>\n

But it all starts with Perseverance. A name plate has been mounted on the rover\u2019s robot arm and all 155 semifinalist names and essays, etched on a microchip, will be sent to Mars as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlex\u2019s entry captured the spirit of exploration,\u201d NASA science chief Thomas Zurbuchen said in a statement. \u201cLike every exploration mission before, our rover is going to face challenges, and it\u2019s going to make amazing discoveries.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alexander Mather, a seventh-grade student in Virginia, reads his winning essay proposing the name \u201cPerseverance\u201d for NASA\u2019s next Mars rover. Credit: NASA\/Aubrey Gemignani Twenty-eight thousand students across the United States submitted essays and proposed names for NASA\u2019s newest Mars rover and on Thursday, the agency announced the winner: Perseverance, submitted by Virginia seventh-grader Alexander Mather. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[724,2131,1183,428,367,1761,1214,190],"class_list":["post-12612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-atlas-5","tag-av-088","tag-jet-propulsion-laboratory","tag-kennedy-space-center","tag-mars","tag-mars-2020","tag-mars-sample-return","tag-nasa"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12612"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12612\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}