Photo Essay: Curiosity’s Mission to Mars

 Clara Ma, a sixth-grader from Lenexa, Kans., submitted the winning essay in early 2009 in a national contest to name the rover of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission. In May 2009, NASA gave the rover the name that Ma proposed, Curiosity.

As a contest prize Ma won the opportunity to sign the rover while it was being assembled and tested at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory for a 2011 launch. The part she signed, shown here, is the belly pan of the main body of the rover. Between writing "Clara Ma" and writing "curiosity," she wrote her Chinese name, the character for Ma (horse) followed by two characters meaning Jade from Heaven.