The European Space Agency (ESA) announced today (Feb. 7) that its next Mars rover will be named for Rosalind Franklin, the late British scientist, who was behind the discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure.
ESA’s ExoMars rover, “Rosalind the rover,” is scheduled to launch to the Red Planet in 2020 and then land in 2021 on a mission to look for signs of life, or extinct life.
Chosen from 36,000 suggestions, the name was revealed at the Airbus facility in Stevenage, in the United Kingdom, where the rover is being assembled.
Full Story: Megan Gannon, Live Science