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Modelling Mars in a sandbox

NASA engineer Marleen Martinez Sundgaard tests landers and rovers before they launch for the red planet.
  1. Amber Dance

    1. Amber Dance is a freelance writer in Los Angeles, California.

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Marleen Martinez Sundgaard working in the In-Situ Instrument Laboratory

Marleen Martinez Sundgaard is the lead systems test-bed engineer for the InSight and Psyche missions at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Credit: Rocco Ceselin for Nature

As a NASA engineer, I have the coolest job: I play with robots in a ‘sandbox’. Anything a lander or rover on Mars does, we first test here on Earth in our sandbox filled with crushed garnet. We need a dust-free space, and garnet is so hard that it creates no dust. We use bright lights to mimic the sunlight on Mars, so pictures taken here are comparable to those captured on the red planet.

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Nature 579, 166 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-00595-3

Updates & Corrections

  • Correction 26 March 2020: This article erroneously implied that the InSight mission has multiple landers on Mars. It has just one. It also stated that the lander was malfunctioning. In fact, the lander is working as designed, but is struggling to cope with unexpected terrain.

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