Local student names NASA Mars rover

“Curiosity,” a name suggested by Sunflower Elementary School sixth-grader Clara Ma, Lenexa, is scheduled to land on Mars in 2011.

Clara’s name for the Mars rover was selected by a NASA panel from 9,000 proposals in a nationwide student contest.

“It is hard to believe,” Clara said. “When I first entered I thought it would be impossible.”

NASA announced the winner May 27.

Clara heard about the contest at her school.

“When we were reading about it I just kind of thought of the name,” Clara said.

The panel of judges selected the winner based on the quality of submitted essays, according to a release from NASA.

“Curiosity is an everlasting flame that burns in everyone’s mind,” Clara wrote in her essay. “It makes me get out of bed in the morning and wonder what surprises life will throw at me that day…Curiosity is the passion that drives us through our everyday lives. We have become explorers and scientists with our need to ask questions and wonder.”

The contest solicited ideas from students 5 to18 years old in United States schools and also considered suggestions from the Mars Science Laboratory project leaders and a non-binding public poll.

“I am especially pleased with the choice, which recognizes something universally human and essential to science,” Mark Dahl, the mission’s program executive at NASA headquarters, said in a statement.

Curiosity will examine the geology of Mars for the span of about two Earth years (one Martian year), said Suparna Mukherjee, a NASA engineer who helped develop Curiosity.

The rover is about the size of a sport utility vehicle, she said.

“I’m excited we finally have a good name,” Mukherjee said.

Clara said she is excited to learn if Mars could support life.

“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,” she said. “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.”

In 2003, NASA launched the Mars rovers “Spirit” and “Opportunity,” named by third-graders.

Clara won a trip to the NASA jet propulsion laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., where she will sign her name on the rover.

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