NASA’s Latest Mars Rover Has a Name (recap video)

NASA has chosen a name for its next Mars rover: Perseverance. The name was announced March 5, 2020, by Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington during a celebration at Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke, Virginia. Zurbuchen was on hand at the school to congratulate Alexander Mather, who submitted the winning entry to the agency’s “Name the Rover“ essay contest, which received 28,000 entrants from K-12 students from every U.S. state and territory. Perseverance is the latest in a long line of Red Planet rovers to be named by school-aged children, from Sojourner in 1997 to Spirit and Opportunity rovers, which landed on Mars in 2004, to Curiosity, which has been exploring Mars since 2012. In each case, the name was selected after a nationwide contest. The launch period for Perseverance opens on July 17, 2020. The rover will land at Mars’ Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, 2021. For more information on the Mars