NASA had run a “Send Your Name to Mars” campaign and a placard commemorating it was installed on the Perseverance on March 16, 2020, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Three chips can be seen in the upper-left corner and they feature the names of 10,932,295 people who participated.
Nasa says they were individually stenciled onto the chips by electron beam, along with the essays of the 155 finalists in NASA’s “Name the Rover” contest.
Covid-19 permitting, liftoff is targeted for mid-July 2020 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. It will be aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V 541 rocket.
Some other pics of the Perseverance, shared by NASA, are below.
The name Perseverance was chasen by the school child Alexander Mather, of Virginia. He was winner of the agency’s “Name the Rover” essay contest
Nasa writes:
Perseverance is the latest in a long line of Red Planet rovers to be named by school-age children, from Sojourner in 1997 to the 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 following a nationwide contest.
Images credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
