The Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA) has just announced a shortlist of ten names for its Mars rover. All these proposals refer to Chinese mythological figures, Confucian concepts and legendary animals.
Two rovers are due to land on Mars in the next few weeks. The first, named Perseverance, is American. To name its vehicle, the American agency had appealed to the children. As of August 28, 2019, all students from kindergarten to grade 12 were invited to make proposals, taking care to explain their choice in a few lines. The initiative aroused a great deal of interest. No less than 28,000 suggestions had indeed been submitted in just a few weeks.
Next, nearly 4,700 volunteer judges reviewed these entries with the goal of narrowing the pool down to 155 semi-finalists and then nine finalists. They finally set their sights on Perseverance.
The second rover is Chinese, and it has been on its way to Mars since July 28, 2020. As part of this mission, dubbed Tianwen-1, it is planned to place a orbiter around the planet and deploy this famous vehicle on the surface. This will be a first for China, which has already landed on the Moon three times . If successful, it will be only the second country to land a craft gently on the red planet after the United States.
Note that the Chinese Tianwen-1 mission must enter Mars orbit on February 10, before attempting a landing in May. Its main objective will be to probe the distribution of water ice in the Martian subsoil. It will also be about mapping the geological structure of the planet.
It is now the turn of the Chinese rover to be baptized. China recently held a forty-day public vote to select the various proposals. Again, the Tianwen-1 mission and the chance to name the rover got a lot of attention. “More than 1.4 million applications have indeed been received from 38 countries and regions since we launched the naming campaign in July 2020. Over 200,000 of them are eligible “said Yuan Foyu, director of the rover’s naming campaign.
Finally, the Center for Lunar Exploration and Space Engineering, belonging to the Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA), released the shortlist of only ten names on January 18, 2021 . Among them is Hongyi, which can be translated as "persistence" or "perseverance", thus echoing the NASA rover.
Other names include:Zhurong (a god of fire), Qilin (a Chinese unicorn), Chitu (red rabbit), Qiusuo (reference to an ancient poem), Zhuimeng (pursuing a dream), Nezha (a mythological hero), Fenghuolun (Nezha's weapons), Tianxing (referring to the movement of celestial bodies, and Xinghuo (spark).
The vote is organized by the Chinese internet giant Baidu, with a deadline set for February 28 . The judges will then deliberate and announce a final name some time before the rover lands on the Martian surface.
