This photograph shows the Vehicle System Test Bed VSTB rover, a nearly identical copy to NASA Curiosity rover on Mars.

This photograph shows the Vehicle System Test Bed VSTB rover, a nearly identical copy to NASA Curiosity rover on Mars.

This photograph shows the Vehicle System Test Bed VSTB rover, a nearly identical copy to NASA Curiosity rover on Mars.

This photograph shows the Vehicle System Test Bed VSTB rover, a nearly identical copy to NASA Curiosity rover on Mars.

A NASA Mars Science Laboratory test rover called the Vehicle System Test Bed, or VSTB, at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA serves as the closest double for Curiosity in evaluations of the mission hardware and software.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, 5th from left, joined by his wife Karen Pence, left, and daughter Charlotte Pence. 2nd from left, view the Vehicle System Test Bed (VSTB) rover in the Mars Yard during a tour of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Saturday, April 28, 2018 in Pasadena, California. NASA Mars Exploration Manager Li Fuk, 2nd from left, JPL Director Michael Watkins, Mars Curiosity Engineering Operations Team Chief Megan Lin, and MSL Engineer Sean McGill, right, helped explain to the Vice President and his family how they use these test rovers. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Engineers test drive the Earth-bound twin of NASA's Perseverance Mars rover for the first time in a warehouselike assembly room at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California on Sept. 1, 2020. This full-scale engineering version of Perseverance helps the mission team gauge how hardware and software will perform before they transmit commands to the real rover on Mars. This vehicle system test bed (VSTB) rover is also known as OPTIMISM (Operational Perseverance Twin for Integration of Mechanisms and Instruments Sent to Mars). The Mars 2020 Perseverance astrobiology mission is part of America's larger Moon to Mars exploration approach that includes missions to the Moon as a way to prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet. Charged with sending the first woman and next man to the Moon by 2024, NASA will establish a sustained human presence on and around the Moon by 2028 through NASA's Artemis program. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA23964

The full-scale engineering model of NASA's Perseverance rover has put some dirt on its wheels. This vehicle system test bed (VSTB) rover moved into its home — a garage facing the Mars Yard at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California — on Sept. 4, 2020. It drove onto simulated Martian surface of the Mars Yard — a dirt field at JPL studded with rocks and other obstacles — for the first time on Sept. 8. The VSTB rover is also known as OPTIMISM (Operational Perseverance Twin for Integration of Mechanisms and Instruments Sent to Mars). A key objective for Perseverance's mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will also characterize the planet's climate and geology, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first planetary spacecraft to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust). Subsequent missions, currently under consideration by NASA in cooperation with the European Space Agency, would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these cached samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis. The Mars 2020 mission is part of a larger program that includes missions to the Moon as a way to prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet. Charged with returning astronauts to the Moon by 2024, NASA will establish a sustained human presence on and around the Moon by 2028 through NASA's Artemis lunar exploration plans. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA23966

This view of a test rover at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, results from advance testing of arm positions and camera pointings for taking a low-angle self-portrait of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover. This rehearsal in California led to a dramatic Aug. 5, 2015, selfie of Curiosity, online at PIA19807. Curiosity's arm-mounted Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera took 92 of component images that were assembled into that mosaic. The rover team positioned the camera lower in relation to the rover body than for any previous full self-portrait of Curiosity. This practice version was taken at JPL's Mars Yard in July 2013, using the Vehicle System Test Bed (VSTB) rover, which has a test copy of MAHLI on its robotic arm. MAHLI was built by Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL designed and built the project's Curiosity rover. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA19810

The full-scale engineering model of NASA's Perseverance rover raises its "head," or remote sensing mast, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. This model is known as the vehicle system test bed (VSTB) rover, or OPTIMISM (Operational Perseverance Twin for Integration of Mechanisms and Instruments Sent to Mars). OPTIMISM raised its mast shortly after moving into its new home at JPL's Mars Yard on Sept. 4, 2020. The mast hosts many of the rover's cameras and scientific instruments. At the top of the mast, the large circular opening is where the SuperCam instrument will be installed on this test rover. Also visible in these images below the SuperCam "eye" are the navigation cameras (two cameras closest to the outside of the head) and the Mastcam-Z cameras inside of the navigation cameras. A key objective for Perseverance's mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will also characterize the planet's climate and geology, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first planetary spacecraft to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust). Subsequent missions, currently under consideration by NASA in cooperation with the European Space Agency, would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these cached samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis. The Mars 2020 mission is part of a larger program that includes missions to the Moon as a way to prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet. Charged with returning astronauts to the Moon by 2024, NASA will establish a sustained human presence on and around the Moon by 2028 through NASA's Artemis lunar exploration plans. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA23967

Technicians move a full-scale engineering version of NASA's Perseverance Mars rover into to its new home — a garage facing the Mars Yard at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California — on Sept. 4, 2020. This vehicle system test bed (VSTB) rover was built in a warehouselike assembly room not far from the Mars Yard — an area that simulates the Red Planet's surface — and enables the mission team to test how hardware and software will perform before they transmit commands to the real rover on Mars. It also goes by the name OPTIMISM (Operational Perseverance Twin for Integration of Mechanisms and Instruments Sent to Mars). The Perseverance rover's astrobiology mission will search for signs of ancient microbial life. It will also characterize the planet's climate and geology, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first planetary mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust). Subsequent missions, currently under consideration by NASA in cooperation with the European Space Agency, would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these cached samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis. The Mars 2020 mission is part of a larger program that includes missions to the Moon as a way to prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet. Charged with returning astronauts to the Moon by 2024, NASA will establish a sustained human presence on and around the Moon by 2028 through NASA's Artemis lunar exploration plans. Movie available at https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA23965