We need your help to choose names for Ella’s and Pip’s four chicks – three males and one female – at the Radisson Hotel.
For those who follow our FalconCam from year to year you will know that we like themes for names when we can find ones that are worthy. This year was surprisingly difficult until I ran across an account of the new space flight mission to the Moon and realized that with all the talk of manned missions to Mars it has been 50 odd years since we were on the moon so this year’s theme is Missions to Space. And since peregrine means “wanderer” and North American peregrine falcon subspecies have the longest migrations in the world, it seemed like a decent fit.
The names are listed in alphabetic order. I’ve listed the female names first because our lone female chick (and I think our oldest chick) deserves to not get lost behind a crowd of male chick names.
VOTE FOR THE CHICKS’ NAMES HERE
Female Chick Names
Artemis
The Artemis program is a robotic and human Moon exploration program led by NASA along with the European Space Agency, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and the Canadian Space Agency. The Artemis program is intended to reestablish a human presence on the Moon for the first time since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. The main parts of the program are the Space Launch System (SLS), the Orion spacecraft, the Lunar Gateway space station, and the commercial Human Landing Systems. The program’s long-term goal is to establish a permanent base on the Moon to facilitate the feasibility of human missions to Mars. Orion’s first launch, and the first use of the Space Launch System, was originally set in 2016, but was rescheduled and launched on 16 November 2022 as the Artemis 1 mission, with robots and mannequins aboard. According to plan, the crewed Artemis 2 launch will take place in 2024, the Artemis 3 crewed lunar landing in 2025, the Artemis 4 docking with the Lunar Gateway in 2028, and future yearly landings on the Moon thereafter.
Artemis is also the Greek goddess of the Moon and of the Hunt (and other things) and the slightly older twin sister of Apollo.
Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_program
NASA website – https://www.nasa.gov/specials/artemis/
Europa
The Europa Clipper is an interplanetary mission in development by NASA comprising an orbiter. Planned for launch in October 2024, the spacecraft is being developed to study the Jupiter’s moon, Europa (the smallest of the Galilean Moons), through a series of flybys while in orbit around Jupiter. The Europa Clipper will perform follow-up studies to those made by the Galileo spacecraft during its eight years (1995–2003) in Jupiter orbit, which indicated the existence of a subsurface ocean underneath Europa’s ice crust. The mission is scheduled to launch in October 2024. The spacecraft will use gravity assists from Mars in February 2025 and Earth in December 2026, before arriving at Europa in April 2030. Europa has been identified as one of the locations in the Solar System that could possibly harbor microbial extraterrestrial life.
Europa was also a mortal consort of the Greek god Zeus, who was Jupiter to the Romans.
Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_Clipper
NASA website – https://europa.nasa.gov/
Juno
Juno is a NASA space probe currently orbiting the planet Jupiter. The spacecraft was launched from Cape Canaveral on August 5, 2011 and Juno entered a polar orbit of Jupiter on July 5, 2016 to begin a scientific investigation of the planet. Juno is the second spacecraft to orbit Jupiter, after the Galileo orbiter, which orbited from 1995 to 2003. Unlike all earlier spacecraft sent to the outer planets, Juno is powered by solar panels, commonly used by satellites orbiting Earth and working in the inner Solar System. Juno has the largest solar panel wings ever deployed on a planetary probe and they play an integral role in stabilizing the spacecraft as well as generating power. Juno’s mission is to measure Jupiter’s composition, gravitational field, magnetic field, and polar magnetosphere. It will also search for clues about how the planet formed, including whether it has a rocky core, the amount of water present within the deep atmosphere, mass distribution, and its deep winds, which can reach speeds up to 620 km/h (390 mph). After completing its mission, Juno will be intentionally deorbited into Jupiter’s atmosphere.
Juno is also the Roman name for Hera, the wife of the Greek god Zeus, who was named Jupiter by the Romans.
Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juno_(spacecraft)
NASA website – https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/juno
Male Chick Names
Apollo
The Apollo program, was the third US human spaceflight program carried out by NASA, which succeeded in preparing and landing the first humans on the Moon from 1968 to 1972. It was first conceived in 1960 during President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s administration as a three-person spacecraft to follow the one-person Project Mercury, which put the first Americans in space. Apollo was later dedicated to President John F. Kennedy’s national goal for the 1960s of “landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth” in an address to Congress on May 25, 1961. It was the third US human spaceflight program to fly, preceded by the two-person Project Gemini conceived in 1961 to extend spaceflight capability in support of Apollo.
Apollo is also the Greek god of the Sun (and other things) and the twin brother of Artemis.
Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program
NASA website – https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/missions/index.html
Cassini
Cassini–Huygens, commonly called Cassini, was a space-research mission by NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Italian Space Agency to send a space probe to study the planet Saturn and its system, including its rings and natural satellites. The robotic spacecraft was comprised of both NASA’s Cassini space probe and ESA’s Huygens lander, which landed on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. Cassini was the fourth space probe to visit Saturn and the first to enter its orbit, where it stayed from 2004 to 2017. Launched on October 15, 1997, Cassini was active in space for nearly 20 years, with 13 years spent orbiting Saturn and studying the planet and its system after entering orbit on July 1, 2004. The voyage to Saturn included flybys of Venus (April 1998 and July 1999), Earth (August 1999), the asteroid 2685 Masursky, and Jupiter (December 2000). The mission ended on September 15, 2017, when Cassini’s trajectory took it into Saturn’s upper atmosphere and it burned up in order to prevent any risk of contaminating Saturn’s moons, which might have offered habitable environments to stowaway terrestrial microbes on the spacecraft. The mission was successful beyond expectations – NASA’s Planetary Science Division Director, Jim Green, described Cassini-Huygens as a “mission of firsts” that has revolutionized human understanding of the Saturn system, including its moons and rings, and our understanding of where life might be found in the Solar System.
Also Giovanni Domenico Cassini, also known as Jean-Dominique Cassini (8 June 1625 – 14 September 1712) was an Italian-born mathematician, astronomer and engineer. He discovered four moon’s of Saturn and noted the division of the rings of Saturn.
Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassini%E2%80%93Huygens
NASA website – https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/main/index.html
Magellan
The Magellan spacecraft was a 1,035-kilogram (2,282 lb) robotic space probe launched by NASA on May 4, 1989, to map the surface of Venus by using synthetic-aperture radar and to measure the planetary gravitational field. The Magellan probe was the first interplanetary mission to be launched from the Space Shuttle, the first one to use the Inertial Upper Stage booster, and the first spacecraft to test aerobraking as a method for circularizing its orbit. Magellan was the fifth successful NASA mission to Venus, and it ended an eleven-year gap in U.S. interplanetary probe launches.
Also Ferdinand Magellan was a Portuguese explorer best known known for having planned and led the 1519 Spanish expedition to the East Indies across the Pacific Ocean to open a maritime trade route, and in the process the first European navigation from the Atlantic to Asia.
Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magellan_(spacecraft)
NASA website – https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/magellan
Mariner
The Mariner program was conducted by NASA to explore other planets. Between 1962 and late 1973, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) designed and built 10 robotic interplanetary probes named Mariner to explore the inner Solar System – visiting the planets Venus, Mars and Mercury for the first time, and returning to Venus and Mars for additional close observations. The program included a number of interplanetary firsts, including the first planetary flyby, the planetary orbiter, and the first gravity assist maneuver. Of the 10 vehicles in the Mariner series, seven were successful, forming the starting point for many subsequent NASA/JPL space probe programs.
Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariner_program
NASA website – https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mariner
Mercury
Project Mercury was the first human spaceflight program of the US and ran from 1958 through 1963. An early highlight of the Space Race, its goal was to put a man into Earth orbit and return him safely, ideally before the Soviet Union. Taken over from the US Air Force by the newly created civilian space agency NASA, it conducted 20 uncrewed developmental flights and six successful flights by astronauts.
Mercury is also the Roman name for the Greek god Hermes, the Messenger of the Gods – he had winged sandals.
Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Mercury
NASA website – https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mercury/missions/program-toc.html
Viking
The Viking program consisted of a pair of identical American space probes, Viking 1 and Viking 2, which landed on Mars in 1976. Each spacecraft was composed of two main parts: an orbiter designed to photograph the surface of Mars from orbit, and a lander designed to study the planet from the surface. The orbiters also served as communication relays for the landers once they touched down. After orbiting Mars for more than a month and returning images used for landing site selection, the orbiters and landers detached; the landers then entered the Martian atmosphere and soft-landed at the sites that had been chosen. The Viking 1 lander touched down on the surface of Mars on July 20, 1976, more than two weeks before Viking 2’s arrival in orbit. Viking 2 then successfully soft-landed on September 3. The orbiters continued imaging and performing other scientific operations from orbit while the landers deployed instruments on the surface.
Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_program
NASA website – https://mars.nasa.gov/mars-exploration/missions/viking-1-2/