NASA to Students: Name Those Spacecraft

October 5, 2011 — NASA has a class assignment for students: help the agency give new names to the twin spacecraft headed to orbit around the moon. The naming contest is open to K-12 students in the United States. Teachers must submit entries using an online entry form. Length of submissions can range from a short paragraph to a 500-word essay, and students may work alone, in small groups or as a class. The entry deadline is November 11. NASA's solar-powered Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL)-A and GRAIL-B spacecraft lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on September 10 to begin a three-and-a-half-month journey to the moon. GRAIL will create a gravity map of the moon using two spacecraft that orbit at very precise distances. The mission will enable scientists to learn about the moon's internal structure and composition, and give scientists a better understanding of its origin. Accurate knowledge of the moon's gravity also could be used to help choose future landing sites. "A NASA mission to the moon is one of the reasons why I am a scientist today," said GRAIL Principal Investigator Maria Zuber from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "My hope is that GRAIL motivates young people today towards careers in science, math and technology. Getting involved with naming our two GRAIL spacecraft could inspire their interest not only in space exploration but in the sciences, and that's a good thing." Zuber and former astronaut Sally Ride of Sally Ride Science in San Diego will chair the final round of judging. Sally Ride Science is the lead for GRAIL's MoonKAM program, which enables students to task cameras aboard the two GRAIL spacecraft to take close-up views of the lunar surface. Click to view the contest rules. The class or student who submits the winning spacecraft names will be invited to participate in a teleconference with GRAIL mission team members.

NASA's GRAIL mission blasts off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Image credit: Thom Baur, United Launch Alliance

• 2012 - 02/22 - Borschberg Begins Simulated 72-Hour Solar Flight
• 2012 - 02/20 - NASA Celebrates 50 Years of Americans in Space
• 2012 - 02/16 - Tiny Robots Swarm Fly in Formation
• 2012 - 02/16 - Civil War Balloon Replica to Take Flight This Summer
• 2012 - 02/09 - Application Deadline Approaches for EAA Scholarship