The Australian Space Agency (ASA) wants help naming its new rover that will eventually go to the Moon. Rover McRoverface is probably out of the question.
On the ASA’s website is the announcement of a competition that looks like it’ll ultimately judged on creativity. Entrants are asked to submit a rover name and a short explanation, and an entrant can be an individual or a group (ie, a school).
But that’s not exactly the news here. The Australian Space Agency has been momentously quiet since all the hoo-ha around finding its home happened back in 2018. The latest Budget allocated $34.2 million (over three years) for the Australian Space Agency, but the detail was light to say the least. The funding was described as being for the ASA to “continue to lead the national policy and strategy coordination of Australia’s civil space sector activities”. We can’t help but see a naming comp as a little bit of smoke and mirrors.
But alas, the ASA is working alongside NASA to design and build an Australian-made, semi-autonomous rover as part of the Trailblazer program under its Moon to Mars initiative. That’s the rover the winner of the aforementioned competition will get to name.
The to-be-named rover will collect lunar soil, known as regolith, and NASA will attempt to extract oxygen from the sample. The ASA said this is a key step towards a sustainable human presence on the Moon.
Two Australian consortiums – AROSE and ELO2 – are currently working on early-stage rover concepts as part of Stage One of the Trailblazer program. It’s understood Stage Two will see one consortium selected to design and develop the fully realised rover for its mission to the Moon. That sort of seems like that’s a competition, too. No wonder we’re not doing much, we’re making people do the work, then maybe not get to complete the job. Anyway, the rover is set to launch to the Moon with NASA in a future Artemis mission by as early as 2026 and the competition to name the Space Agency rover closes October 20.
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