Illustration (Photo: REUTERS / James Lawler Duggan)

Creating an Exploratory Robot, NASA held a National Name Search Competition

USA - It is still in many years before the first humans are finally expected to land on Mars. However, NASA will hold a Mars 2020 exploration mission and is scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA Air Force Station in July 2020 and is expected to land on the surface of Mars in February 2021 to looking for signs of microbial life in the past, characterizing the Earth's climate and geology, collecting samples to return to Earth, and paving the way for exploration on Mars.

Through this important mission, it is reported by the official website that, NASA has collaborated with two organizations namely Battelle Education from Columbus, Ohio and Future Engineers from Burbank, California to collaborate with NASA in the Mars 2020 "Name the Rover" contest that will be opened to students in the fall of this year.

Basically this national contest that NASA held is providing an opportunity for 12 US students to make history by giving the name for Mars Rover (robot explorer) 2020. The Mars 2020 "Name the Rover" contest will be held on the Future Engineers site which functions as an online portal to include shipping names and ratings for this event.

According to Mars Executive Program 2020 NASA, George Tahu, they are very excited about this extraordinary partnership and that contests like this present an extraordinary opportunity to invite young students and educators to be part of this journey and understand the possibilities of extraterrestrial life and to advance new capabilities in exploration technology.
It is informed that, by focusing on the "Name the Rover" Mars 2020 contest on K-12 entries, the contest was also held to support national goals to foster interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and help create the next generation of STEM leaders so they will be familiar with the science including space.

However, apparently K-12 students are not the only ones who can participate in the contest. NASA is also looking for volunteers to help assess thousands of proposed names of rovers that are thought to come from all over the world to get to know more about this mission and space exploration.

Source: https://www.cnnindonesia.com/teknologi/20190630201244-199-407802/nasa-buka-kompetisi-untuk-beri-nama-misi-mars-2020