NASA has announced a winner of their ‘Name the Rover’ contest, revealing that Perseverance will be the chosen name for the Mars 2020 rover currently scheduled to launch to Mars on March 5, 2020 and land within the Jezero Crater in 2021.

The name was chosen after judges poured through submissions made by more than 28,000 students across the U.S. as part of the Name the Rover essay contest, an effort made by NASA to better engage students about future Mars exploration. Students enrolled in U.S. public, private and home schools were all eligible to enter the contest which would see one grand prize winner be selected to both name the rover as well as be invited to see the spacecraft launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. After narrowing down the submissions, NASA announced the final nine chosen entries in January : Clarity, Courage, Endurance, Fortitude, Ingenuity, Perseverance, Promise, Tenacity and Vision.

NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine had described the contest as “a wonderful opportunity for our nation’s youth to get involved with NASA’s moon-to-Mars missions,” adding, “It’s an exciting way to engage with a rover that will likely serve as the first leg of a Mars ‘sample return’ campaign, collecting and caching core samples from the Martian surface for scientists here on Earth to study for the first time.”