For your Just Too Cool file from NASA: Montana Students Pick
Winning Names for Moon Craft January 17, 2012 PASADENA, Calif. —
Twin NASA spacecraft that achieved orbit around the moon New
Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day have new names, thanks to
elementary students in Bozeman, Mont. Their winning entry, “Ebb
and Flow,” was selected as part of a nationwide school contest
that began in October 2011. The names were submitted by fourth
graders from the Emily Dickinson Elementary School. Nearly 900
classrooms with more than 11,000 students from 45 states, Puerto
Rico and the District of Columbia participated in the contest.
Previously named Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory, or
GRAIL-A and -B, the washing machine-sized spacecraft begin
science operations in March, after a launch in September 2011.
“The 28 students of Nina DiMauro’s class at the Emily Dickinson
Elementary School have really hit the nail on the head,” said
Maria Zuber, GRAIL principal investigator from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology i