Do People In Michigan Still Get Excited About Space Missions? Published: February 17, 2021 BURKE, VA - MARCH 05: In this handout provided by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Alex Mather, the student whose submission, Perseverance, was chosen as the official name of the Mars 2020 rover, reads his essay entry, March 5, 2020, at Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke, Virginia. The final selection of the new name was made by Associate Administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Thomas Zurbuchen, following a nationwide naming contest conducted in 2019 that drew more than 28,000 essays by K-12 students from every U.S. state and territory. Perseverance is currently at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida being prepared for launch this summer. (Photo by Aubrey Gemignani/NASA via Getty Images)