NASA dubs next Mars rover “Perseverance”
NASA today announced that they have named their next Mars rover, due to launch in July, “Perseverance.”
The name was announced Thursday by Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate, during a celebration at Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke, Virginia. Zurbuchen was at the school to congratulate seventh grader Alexander Mather, who submitted the winning entry to the agency’s “Name the Rover” essay contest, which received 28,000 entries fromK-12 students from every U.S. state and territory.
“Alex’s entry captured the spirit of exploration,” said Zurbuchen. “Like every exploration mission before, our rover is going to face challenges, and it’s going to make amazing discoveries. It’s already surmounted many obstacles to get us to the point where we are today – processing for launch. Alex and his classmates are the Artemis Generation, and they’re going to be taking the next steps into space that lead to Mars. That inspiring work will always require perseverance. We can’t wait to see that nameplate on Mars.”
I truly hope that the rover is well-named, and lives a very long life on Mars, long enough that it is still in use the day an human arrives to touch it again.
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NASA today announced that they have named their next Mars rover, due to launch in July, “Perseverance.”
The name was announced Thursday by Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate, during a celebration at Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke, Virginia. Zurbuchen was at the school to congratulate seventh grader Alexander Mather, who submitted the winning entry to the agency’s “Name the Rover” essay contest, which received 28,000 entries fromK-12 students from every U.S. state and territory.
“Alex’s entry captured the spirit of exploration,” said Zurbuchen. “Like every exploration mission before, our rover is going to face challenges, and it’s going to make amazing discoveries. It’s already surmounted many obstacles to get us to the point where we are today – processing for launch. Alex and his classmates are the Artemis Generation, and they’re going to be taking the next steps into space that lead to Mars. That inspiring work will always require perseverance. We can’t wait to see that nameplate on Mars.”
I truly hope that the rover is well-named, and lives a very long life on Mars, long enough that it is still in use the day an human arrives to touch it again.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
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5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
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I have a tiny concern about the name “Perseverance.” What if it doesn’t persevere?
But even if it doesn’t, it will certainly return some excellent data while it lasts, so wouldn’t “Verisimilitude” be safer, in addition to being a name more appealing to 7th-graders?
Just asking.
If I am not mistaken, the RTG’s on Mars Curiosity (which is the same basic architecture and power usage as Perseverence) are supposed to last 14 years before dropping below 100 watts – though that may merely mean that it continues function with a gradual shutdown of instruments over several more years, so long as nothing breaks.
If this is also true for Perseverence, then it should last until 2035 at full functionality – again, so long as nothing else critical breaks – and then presumably for several more years with reduced instrument operation.
This seems to leave a pretty decent window of time for Elon’s crews to come pay a visit. He won’t make his aspirational deadlines, but he might just make 2035. Which is far more than we can say for NASA.
“I have a tiny concern about the name “Perseverance.” What if it doesn’t persevere?”
I’d call it Royal Navy braggadocio. The RN were taking that same chance every time they named a warship INVINCIBLE or INDEFATIGABLE. Which they did quite often.
(For the record, the RN named seven ships INVINCIBLE. Three were sunk in storms, and one was blown to pieces by German shellfire at Jutland. But I’m guessing that generations of British schoolchildren understood the name was aspirational.)
Anyway, Perseverence is basically just an updated Curiosity, and Curiosity’s track record gives reasonable hope that Perseverence will indeed persevere on the Martian surface for decades to come.
Damn. I thought with this crowd I could forego a /sarc tag.
“Damn. I thought with this crowd I could forego a /sarc tag.”
LOL
@Ray… Well done sir!! This place needs more ironic humour!
@ everyone….I know the whole parachute, floating platform, descending wires business has been road tested…. But even so, it scares the bejebus out of me!! I will be watching / listening to the live stream, with a bottle of bubbly at hand, whatever time of day it is, for those minuets of terror, and joy or (hopefully bloody not!) Tears, on landing day…. NASAs got pretty good at this… But Mars remains a harsh mistresses also… Godspeed to perseverance!