Send your name to Mars with NASA

Muscat: NASA is giving space aficionados around the world the opportunity to send their names on an interplanetary journey to the red planet alongside the Mars 2020 Rover.

Members of the public can have their names shipped with the rover and receive their very own boarding pass.

The Mars 2020 Rover will be launched from Cape Canaveral on the US state of Florida's world-famous Space Coast in the summer of 2020. NASA has given it a July 17 - August 5 2020 launch window. Its expected to land on Mars' Jezero Crater on February 18 2021.

According to NASA, the rover is part of the agency's long-term efforts to answer a number of highly important scientific questions about Mars through robotic exploration.

Submissions must be made before September 30 2019.

NASA has received 5,334,534 submissions to date.

The largest number of submissions have come from Turkey, where a total of 2,238,765 names have been submitted, followed by India with 595,869. The US had the third highest number of name submissions at the time of writing, with 5351,134.

Submissions can be made at https://go.nasa.gov/Mars2020pass