Twin of NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover Moves Into New Home

A full-scale engineering model of NASA's Perseverance Mars rover now resides in a garage facing the Mars Yard at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

This vehicle system test bed rover (VSTB) is also known as OPTIMISM, which stands for Operational Perseverance Twin for Integration of Mechanisms and Instruments Sent to Mars. OPTIMISM was built in a warehouselike assembly room near the Mars Yard – an area that simulates the Red Planet's rocky surface. The rover helps the mission test hardware and software before it’s transmitted to the real rover on Mars. OPTIMISM will share the space with the Curiosity rover's twin MAGGIE.

Perseverance is set to land on the surface of Mars on February 18, 2021.

For more information on the mission, visit: https://mars.nasa.gov/perseverance/

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech