On Aug. 28, 2019, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) opened up a competition of naming the 2020 Mars Rover. They asked students to write an essay explaining why the name they came up with was the best. They started judging the essays on Nov. 1 of 2019 and picked nine names for people to vote on worldwide. The winner and name will be announced in March.
Possible names for the Mars Rover:
Contestant one is Oliver Jacobs from Virginia with the name Endurance.
Contestant two is Eamon Reilly from Pennsylvania with the name Tenacity.
Contestant three is Amira Shanshiry from Massachusetts with the name Promise.
Contestant four is Alexander Mather from Virginia with the name Perseverance.
Contestant five is Hadley Green from Mississippi with the name Vision.
Contestant six is Nora Benitez from California with the name Clarity.
Contestant seven is Vaneeza Rupani from Alabama with the name Ingenuity.
Contestant eight is Anthony Yoon from Oklahoma with the name Fortitude.
Contestant nine is Tori Gray from Louisiana with the name Courage.
The top three countries to vote so far are the United States with over 500,000 votes, Turkey with over 24,000 votes, and Romania with over 20,000 votes.
The rover is around the size of a car with a width of nine feet and the length of 10 feet. It’s seven feet tall and weighs 2,260 pounds. NASA plans to launch between July 17 to Aug. 5 of 2020.
