It’s been a year since NASA JPL’s Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter landed on Mars on February 18, 2021, bringing us spectacular new images and videos of The Red Planet. And in honor of this milestone for Percy and Ginny, we’re bringing you an unaired clip from our past interview with Hallie Abarca, a software engineer and former rover driver at JPL. She takes us behind the scenes of a special place at JPL called the “Mars Yard,” an outdoor field with red dirt made to look just like a mock Martian landscape.
Ever wonder what goes on at the JPL Mars Yard?
Hallie tells us how they use the yard to test Mars rovers right here in California.
Learn more about the Mars Yard in this video tour and this virtual tour from JPL.
Have a question you've been wondering about? Send an email or voice recording to everwonder@californiasciencecenter.org to tell us what you'd like to hear in future episodes.
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