NASA Selects Student Entry as Next Mars Rover Name

After a contest that lasted between November 2008 and January 25th, 2009, the American space agency finally declared a winner, and announced the name of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission to the Red Planet, which is scheduled for take-off in 2011. The winning submission came from 12-year-old Clara Ma, a student at the Sunflower Elementary school in Lenexa, Kansas. She argued in her essay that the name “Curiosity” would best describe the nature of the rover, and of our race as a whole. Panel members at NASA agreed, and so Clara wins a trip to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), in Pasadena, California, and a chance to sign her name directly on the machine, as it is assembled.

“Curiosity is an everlasting flame that burns in everyone's mind. It makes me get out of bed in the morning and wonder what surprises life will throw at me that day. Curiosity is such a powerful force. Without it, we wouldn't be who we are today. Curiosity is the passion that drives us through our everyday lives. We have become explorers and scientists with our need to ask questions and to wonder,” the girl wrote in the essay accompanying her name proposal.

“I was really interested in space, but I thought space was something I could only read about in books and look at during the night from so far away. I thought that I would never be able to get close to it, so for me, naming the Mars rover would at least be one step closer,” she added.

“Students from every state suggested names for this rover. That's testimony to the excitement Mars missions spark in our next generation of explorers. Many of the nominating essays were excellent and several of the names would have fit well. I am especially pleased with the choice, which recognizes something universally human and essential to science,” the MSL Program Executive, Mark Dahl, from NASA's Headquarters, in Washington DC, said of the new name.

While the contest was open, more than 9,000 entries were submitted from all around the United States, via either the Internet or the mail. Children between the ages of five and 18 could participate, and the competition addressed all those interested in participating in naming NASA's latest rover.

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures also contributed to the naming effort, showing details of how children could participate in the contest in its animated film Wall-E. In addition to Clara, nine other finalists will get the chance to inscribe their names electronically, on an MSL-mounted chip.

“We have been eager to call the rover by name. Giving it a name worthy of this mission's quest means a lot to the people working on it,” the Manager of the JPL team in charge of building and testing Curiosity, Pete Theisinger, concluded.