Perseverance new name of Mars 2020 rover

Perrseverance rover completes mobility tests at JPL in Pasadena, California, 17 December 2019 (NASA/JPL-CalTech)

On 5 March 2020, NASA officials announced the name Perseverance for the space mission which had been provisionally named “Mars 2020”. The winning entry was from Alexander Mather of Burke, Virginia.

Over 28,000 submissions from students were condensed into nine finalists, which included Anthony Yoon of Norman, Oklahoma, whose submission was Fortitude.

The rover is expected to launch in Q2 of 2020 and arrive on Mars in Q1 of 2021. It will explore crater Jezero on the edge of the Isidis Planitia on Mars. The rover is derived from the same robotics platform used for Curiosity, and among other tasks, will set aside collected samples of soil and rock in sealed containers designed to be recovered and returned to Earth by a later Mars mission.

Author: Fargo Orbit

The Fargo Orbit delivers science and aerospace news from a vantage point in the centre of North America.

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