THE name of a new Mars rover partly funded by the UK Space Agency has been revealed.

The UK-made ExoMars rover, due to roam the surface of the red planet near its equator in 2021, has been named after UK scientist and co-discoverer of the structure of DNA Rosalind Franklin.

The space agency’s international director Dr Alice Bunn said: “Rosalind Franklin is one of science’s most influential women, and her part in the discovery of the structure of DNA was truly ground-breaking.

“It’s fitting that the robot bearing her name will search for the building blocks of life on Mars, as she did so on Earth through her work on DNA.”

The new name was chosen by a panel of experts from a shortlist submitted by the public, following a naming competition opened in July last year to which nearly 36,000 people responded.

Competition entrants that correctly guessed the final name were invited to the naming ceremony at Airbus where they met astronaut Tim Peake and had a tour of the facility.

Tim said: “This rover will scout the Martian surface equipped with next-generation instruments – a fully-fledged automated laboratory on Mars. With it, we are building on our European heritage in robotic exploration, and at the same time devising new technologies.”

The UK Space Agency is the second largest European contributor to the European Space Agency and Roscosmos ExoMars mission, having invested €287 million into the mission and £14 million on the instruments. This, in addition to successful negotiations with ESA, secured key mission contracts for the UK space sector.