NASA’s Phoenix lander carried the mini-DVD with public-submitted names in 2008. The disc, called “Visions of Mars,” was provided by The Planetary Society and arrived on Mars attached to the lander’s deck beside an American flag.
The silica-glass disc contained the names of roughly 250,000 people from more than 70 countries. It also preserved Mars-related literature, art, music, and messages intended for future explorers, making it a cultural time capsule as well as a symbolic payload.
Phoenix landed on 25 May 2008 in Mars’s northern polar region. Its robotic arm dug into the soil and confirmed water ice just beneath the surface, while its cameras and weather instruments studied the local environment. The mission greatly expanded knowledge of the planet’s icy arctic terrain.
The disc is often confused with later “send your name to Mars” campaigns. Those campaigns placed names on spacecraft such as InSight and Perseverance, but Phoenix carried the earlier public-name archive known as Visions of Mars.