Indian-origin girl names NASA’s 1st Mars copter

Washington, April 30

NASA’s first Mars helicopter has a name now and the credit goes to 17-year-old Indian-origin girl Vaneeza Rupani. Rupani, a high school junior from Northport, Alabama, earned the honour of naming the helicopter after she submitted her essay into NASA’s “Name the Rover” contest.

Destined to become the first aircraft to attempt powered flight on another planet, NASA’s Mars Helicopter officially named: Ingenuity, as suggested by Rupani.

While NASA announced in March that its next rover would be named Perseverance based on seventh-grader Alexander Mather’s essay, the agency decided to also choose a name for the helicopter that will accompany the rover to Mars.

“Our Mars helicopter has a new name! Meet: Ingenuity. Student Vaneeza Rupani came up with the name during our “name the rover” contest.

Rupani’s entry was among 28,000 essays submitted by K-12 students from every US state and territory. “The ingenuity and brilliance of people working hard to overcome the challenges of interplanetary travel are what allow us all to experience the wonders of space exploration,” Rupani wrote in her essay, according to a news release by NASA.

Ingenuity and Perseverance are scheduled to launch in July and land next February at Mars’ Jezero Crater, the site of a lake that existed 3.5 billion years ago. — PTI