Indian-origin girl gets honour of naming NASA's first Mars helicopter

NASA's first Mars helicopter has a name now and the credit goes to 17-year-old Indian-origin girl Vaneeza Rupani.

Rupani, a high school junior from Northport, Alabama, earned the honour of naming the helicopter after she submitted her essay into NASA's "Name the Rover" contest.

Destined to become the first aircraft to attempt powered flight on another planet, NASA's Mars Helicopter officially named: Ingenuity, as suggested by Rupani.

While NASA announced in March that its next rover would be named Perseverance based on seventh-grader Alexander Mather's essay, the agency decided to also choose a name for the helicopter that will accompany the rover to Mars.

"Our Mars helicopter has a new name! Meet: Ingenuity. Student Vaneeza Rupani came up with the name during our name the rover contest. Ingenuity will ride to the Red Planet with @NASAPersevere to attempt the first powered flight on another world," NASA tweeted.

Rupani's entry was among 28,000 essays submitted by K-12 students from every US state and territory, according to NASA, which made the announcement on Wednesday.

"The ingenuity and brilliance of people working hard to overcome the challenges of interplanetary travel are what allow us all to experience the wonders of space exploration," Rupani wrote in her essay, according to a news release by NASA.

"Ingenuity is what allows people to accomplish amazing things, and it allows us to expand our horizons to the edges of the universe," it said.

Rupani has been interested in space science since she was a young child, according to her mother Nausheen Rupani.

"On their way to school every day, she and her dad would pretend they were in a spaceship. They would imagine seeing planets (buildings), stars (traffic lights), etc. on their way and give them names," Nausheen Rupani told NASA.

To have her submission selected was more than exciting, the teenager said.

"(I thought) ingenuity would be a good name for the helicopter because that is exactly what it took to design this machine," she told NASA. "The helicopter is an incredible project, and I am thrilled to have a part in its journey."