User: Why is the rover called Perseverance?
Assistant: A seventh-grade student, Alexander Mather, won a nationwide essay contest to name the rover. Perseverance is the latest in a long line of Red Planet rovers to be named by school-age children, from Sojourner in 1997 to the Spirit and Opportunity rovers, which landed on Mars in 2004, to Curiosity, which has been exploring Mars since 2012.