Step inside JPL's rover lab, where we run tests for NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers. You're in the viewing gallery. Pam, a scientist, sits on a stool on the floor below with a laptop on her lap. All around Pam, it looks like Mars. At her feet, sand, dirt and rocks create the ground. Behind her a colorful cloth helps keep the lab looking like Mars. On the back wall, rotating pictures show past and future rover missions.
Pam uses her laptop to command a rover to roll across the terrain. She explains that this rover is a test model of the rovers Spirit and Opportunity. When the rover finds itself in an unusual situation on Mars, engineers create that environment here in our lab.
Engineers use the test rover to figure out a solution and then send up commands telling the rover what to do.
