What are the rovers names?
On Sunday, June 8, 2003, NASA Chief Administrator Sean O’Keefe announced that the Mars Exploration Rovers had been renamed Spirit and Opportunity. O’Keefe made the announcement at a press conference along with Sofi Collis, the 9-year-old who had submitted the winning names in a contest sponsored by The Planetary Society and LEGO. Collis, a third-grader from Scottsdale, Arizona, was born in Siberia and had been adopted by an America family at the age two. Her submissions were selected from 10,000 entries. Speculation for the names had included Orville and Wilbur (Wright, because of the 100th anniversary of their flight), or Marvin the Martian and Daffy Duck. The names that were chosen, however, are more reminiscent of landers past; recall the Sojourner rover of the 1997 Pathfinder mission. Then before that there was Viking 1 and Viking 2.
