A Rover's Story by Jasmine Warga

This is a sweet story about a Mars rover named Resilience. Res is created by NASA scientists and develops human-like thoughts and emotions. The story begins at NASA where Res develops strong feelings for the humans who are programming him. One of those humans, Rania, has a young daughter who is fascinated with Res and writes letters to Res that are scattered throughout the book. Res does successfully get to Mars along with a helpful drone, and their challenge there is to find something that will make NASA want to retrieve them and bring them back to Earth. It's an entertaining and insightful story about space and artificial intelligence with some surprisingly poignant moments. Recommended for kids who liked The Wild Robot. At first glance it seems to be an elementary book, but I think middle schoolers will find a lot to enjoy here. 
 

The Martian by Andy Weir

This book was recommended to me by several high school boys. It's not something I normally would pick up, but I listened to it as an audiobook, and found it very compelling. It is hands-down the most science-filled science fiction book I have ever read, and as a matter of fact, it's almost nothing but science. The plot is simple. Mark Watley, an American astronaut, is left for dead during a mission to Mars. He's not dead, though, and he must figure out a way to survive on Mars for as long as it takes NASA to rescue him. Things go wrong. He almost dies. He fixes the problems. Then more things go wrong. There's not a lot of characterization or dialogue, but his survival story kept me hooked and all the science sounded believable to me. I'm pretty sure this will appeal to people who don't like novels dripping with symbolism and emotion and deep meaning. Highly recommended to boys from grades 7-up (not that girls won't like it but it definitely has strong guy-appeal).