NASA will send almost 11 million people names to Mars

NASA's “Send Your Name to Mars” campaign, which ended in late September, was a great success. According to the agency, more than 10 million names have been received from people from around the world, who will be taken to the Red Planet at the next mission, scheduled to depart in July 2020.

Anyone interested in having their name taken to Mars could join the list for free until September 30th. Just go to the site Send you name to Mars, providing first name, last name, country and email address to complete the registration.

All names received will be recorded in text and transferred to a chip that will accompany the Mars 2020 spacecraft into space. According to NASA, an electron beam technology will be used to transfer the names to the electronic component.

Countries that will most send names to Mars

Of the 10, 931, 238 names received by NASA, more than 2.5 million came from Turkey, the country with the largest number of project participations. Following are India and the United States, each with 1.7 million names submitted.

Next comes China, with 292, 000 participants, Iran with 287, 000, and the United Kingdom with 284, 000. Thousands of Brazilians will also have their names sent to Mars in 2020. According to the US space agency, more than 180, 000 names received in the campaign come from Brazil.

Those who included your name on the Mars 2020 spacecraft are entitled to receive a “travel pass” as a souvenir and confirm that they participated in the campaign, as well as earn “miles” to have their name given priority in future space missions.

Mission Launch

In its final stages of preparation, the Mars 2020 mission will take a small robot to the Red Planet to look for signs of microbial life, as well as study the Martian climate and geology of our space neighbor.

The launch of the new mission should take place between July 17 and August 5, 2020, when there are ideal conditions for the trip. The predicted landing of the probe there is for February 18, 2021.