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An Alabama high school student named NASA’s first Mars helicopter to be deployed to the Red Planet later this summer.
The mill, named after Vaneeza Rupani, was selected for the 4-pound (1.8-kilogram) solar-powered helicopter, NASA said in a statement Wednesday. The name coined by the junior at the Tuscaloosa County High School in Northport was just one of 28,000 names submitted in NASA’s “Name the Rover” essay contest for K-12 students in the United States. .
“The ingenuity and brilliance of people who work hard to overcome the challenges of interplanetary travel are what allow us all to experience the wonders of space exploration,” Rupani wrote in his essay. “Ingenuity is what enables people to accomplish amazing things, and allows us to expand our horizons to the edges of the universe.”
In March, the space agency selected the name Perseverance for the Mars Rover based on the test by a Virginia student, but decided to return to the tests presented to also choose a name for the helicopter that will accompany the Rover.
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said Ingenuity “summarizes the values that our demonstration of helicopter technology will show.” Alabama Senator Richard Shelby also congratulated Rupani on the honor.
“It was really cool to be able to be a part of something like this,” he told the AP.
The mill has already completed testing on a NASA simulation camera in Southern California. It will then join the belly of Perseverance, which will take off for Mars in July or August. After it reaches the red planet, the helicopter will remain under a protected cover to protect it from debris until the time is right for the plane to deploy.
It will then have a 31-day flight window to demonstrate that powered flights can be conducted on Mars, NASA said.
This year’s mission is part of a program that also includes missions to the moon to prepare for possible human exploration of Mars. NASA plans to land the first woman and the next man on the moon in 2024, and establish a continuous human presence “on and around” the moon in eight years so they can use it to send astronauts to Mars.
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This story has been corrected. Rupani’s first name is Vaneeza, not Vaneera.
