A longtime Buffalo Bills fan is being recognized by Thursday's Mars rover launch.

NASA launched a rover named "Perseverance" toward the red planet at 7:50 a.m.

The rover contains a control chip inscribed with the names of the whole family of Bills superfan Ezra Castro, better known as Pancho Billa. He died last year after battling cancer. His story eventually reached a NASA engineer who helped build the rover and wanted to honor him.

The names of Veronica Borjon, Castro's longtime partner, and their two children are on the chip. She says it's an amazing experience to be part of.

"After he had passed, I said 'daddy's in heaven, daddy looks down on us, he watches us from the sky.' So every time we're in the car, we're outside at night they pick a star. They're like 'look mom, there's daddy.' And the fact that he's going to be actually on Mars along with their names and all of us I can say 'yes we're actually in the sky, we're actually in a galaxy, we're actually on Mars and daddy's always going to be there and we're always going to be there with him.' So it just makes it that much more memorable," said Borjon.

She was watching the NASA launch of the Perseverance rover with family in person and via Zoom.

The launch could be seen by the public via the NASA website.