With all the hype over the launch of the Perseverance rover last July 30, let's look back at the names of the four previous Mars rovers and the human values espoused by these little-engines-that-could:
Sojourner - a person who resides temporarily in a place
Opportunity - a set of circumstances that makes it possible to do something
Spirit - the principle of conscious life; the vital principle in humans
Curiosity - interest leading to inquiry
The pioneer
Sojourner landed on Mars in July of 1997 through the Mars Pathfinder mission. The microwave sized robot was able to send back 550 photos of Mars to help us learn more about the red planet.
The rover was named after American civil rights crusader Sojourner Truth.
An abolitionist and champion of women's rights, Sojourner Truth, whose legal name was Isabella Van Wagener, made it her mission to "travel up and down the land," advocating the rights of all people to be free and the rights of women to participate fully in society.
NASA chose the name Sojourner because it meant "traveler;" to sojourn means to temporarily stay. True to its name, Sojourner's time on Mars was short. Two months after it landed, it's last communication to Earth was recorded on September 27, 1997.
The twins
Following the success of Sojourner's mission, NASA sent two more rovers to Mars in 2003. The Opportunity and Spirit rovers were part of the Mars Exploration Rover mission. The twin rovers were sent to Mars to collect clues about the water history of the planet.
Perhaps as a testament to their namesake values, the two rovers went beyond their expected lifetimes.
Both rovers exceeded their planned 90-day mission lifetimes by many years. Spirit lasted 20 times longer than its original design until its final communication to Earth on March 22, 2010. Opportunity continues to operate more than a decade after launch. In 2015, Opportunity broke the record for extraterrestrial travel by rolling greater than the distance of a 26-mile (42-kilometer) marathon.
The entertainer
After the twins, the fourth rover, Curiosity, landed on Mars in 2012. It is the biggest robot sent to another planet at about the size of a small SUV.
Living up to its name, Curiosity has four main goals in support of the agency's Mars exploration program:
Determine whether life ever arose on Mars.
Characterize the climate of Mars.
Characterize the geology of Mars.
Prepare for human exploration.
Curiosity continues its mission until today. Its updates are always educational, exciting, and entertaining. You can follow its travel log on Twitter @MarsCuriosity
The inspiration
The fifth rover, Perseverance, has yet to make contact with the red planet but it is well on its way. The Perseverance rover was launched just a few days ago, on July 30 with the mission to "seek out signs of past microscopic life on Mars, explore the diverse geology of its landing site, Jezero Crater, and demonstrate key technologies that will help us prepare for future robotic and human exploration."
The name 'Perseverance' was proposed by seventh-grader Alex Mather, from Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke, Virginia. It was chosen among the nine shortlisted names in the student naming contest for the new Mars rover. The new moniker "captures the spirit of space exploration remarkably well" said Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate.
To be fair, the other names were just as good:
Endurance, K-4, Oliver Jacobs of Virginia.
Tenacity, K-4, Eamon Reilly of Pennsylvania.
Promise, K-4, Amira Shanshiry of Massachusetts.
Vision, 5-8, Hadley Green of Mississippi.
Clarity, 5-8, Nora Benitez of California.
Ingenuity, 9-12, Vaneeza Rupani of Alabama.
Fortitude, 9-12, Anthony Yoon of Oklahoma.
Courage, 9-12, Tori Gray of Louisiana.
The launch of the latest rover gave us much-needed inspiration in the middle of the pandemic. Living on Earth can be exhausting and frustrating at times but we have our own planetary mission to do right by our planet.
If you ever feel down on our luck, may the names and the successes of the Mars rovers give you a boost to launch and accomplish our own personal missions.
P.S. You may follow Percy's journey @NASAPersevere on Twitter.
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Sources:
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