NASA asks school children to name new Mars rover
By admin on January 21, 2009 at 5:22 amUS space agency NASA has started a contest among school children to name the agency’s next Mars rover. Called as “Name the Rover”, the contest is started in partnership with Disney-Pixar’s WALL-E. It is open for 5 to 18 years old student in grades K-12 in the United States, including U.S. possessions and schools operated by the U.S. for children of American personnel overseas.
Mars Science Laboratory
Entrants should submit original essays explaining why their suggested name for the rover is the right one. The deadline for submission of essays is January 25, 2009. Then there will be a worldwide public poll on or around March 22-29, 2009. From the pool, nine finalist names will be selected, 3 from each grade range: k-3, 4-7, 8-12. And finally the winning name will be announced on or around April 16th, 2009.
What about the prize? The winner will get WALL-E prizes and a trip to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to sign his/her name on the real rover going to MARS in 2011.
The new rover, the Mars Science Laboratory, will be larger and more capable compared to rovers previously sent to planet Mars. The rover will check to see whether the environment in a selected landing region ever has been favorable for supporting microbial life and preserving evidence of life. The rover also will search for minerals that formed in the presence of water and look for several chemical building blocks of life. NASA is currently building and testing the rover, which will be launched in 2011.
More info: http://marsrovername.jpl.nasa.gov/
Some Related Articles
Category: Space | Tags: Mars, NASA, Science, Space, Technology
New Mars Rover - hope they have the same crews designing and building this one that built Spirit and Opportunity. These two rovers are now over five years old - they only had a life expectancy of 90 days. Nice site and thanks
[...] taking help from school children in renaming the Mars Science Laboratory, US space agency NASA is now inviting everyone to decide which object the Hubble Space Telescope [...]