The new name for the Mars 2020 Rover was announced on Thursday March 5, 2020 and the winning name was “Perseverance”. The winning rover name was submitted by Alexander Mather, a seventh grader from Virginia. Mather is also a Space Camp Alumnus, and credits his time at Space Camp for increasing his love of space and space science. Prior to attending camp, he had an interest in video games and technology, but Space Camp opened his interests to NASA and space science.

The name Perseverance came to him, because in other rover names we had covered the spirit of exploration with Spirit and Sojourner, but had thus far missed one essential ingredient of exploration – Perseverance.

Great job to this inspiring alumnus on picking a name for the new generation of exploration! We look forward to hearing about all of the discoveries that Perseverance finds on Mars, starting in 2021.

Find out more about Perseverance and Alexander Mather in the official NASA press release: https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/virginia-middle-school-student-earns-honor-of-naming-nasas-next-mars-rover

And more about the missions of Perseverance here: https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/

Stay tuned for incredible images to come from the surface of Mars when Perseverance has its anticipated landing in February 2021. Perseverance is the largest, most advanced rover that NASA has ever sent to another world, thus making this a giant leap forward in the name of exploration. Images from the surface of Mars will be relayed with only an approximate 15 minute delay, giving real-time data back to Earth and creating a new database about this extraterrestrial world.

Teams at NASA’s JPL, or Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in California will over see the new rover, including many Space Camp Alumni working on the team. We will be following this story and its advancements in the coming months! The information gathered from this mission will be a stepping stone to future exploration, perhaps even by humans, on Mars.