Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (NASA-JPL) are engaged in ensuring the functioning of the Perseverance rover and the Ingenuity helicopter in the middle of the Jezero crater on Mars. These robotic researchers continue their search for ancient microbial life on the Red Planet. But some of the same engineers have also been working with LEGO designers on new models of these research robots, which have now officially joined the LEGO Technic line at 1:10 scale to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers.
This collaboration demonstrates NASA’s continued commitment to working with the private sector to share ideas and technical expertise through the JPL Technology Partners Program and the California Institute of Technology’s Office of Technology Transfer and Corporate Partnerships. For this new STEM-themed LEGO set, LEGO designers sought to learn about the engineering aspects of perseverance and ingenuity in order to design and build the most accurate LEGO models.
NASA and LEGO have a rich history of partnership that dates back to the 1990s, when they designed and built constructors to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers. Among them: models of the Apollo 11 lunar spacecraft, Space Shuttle, Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes and Saturn V rockets.
LEGO figures have even been sent into space. During the NASA Juno mission, figures of the Roman god Jupiter, his wife Juno and the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei were attached to Jupiter on the spacecraft in the form of men of the famous series of constructors. Most recently, four LEGO figures flew as part of the Artemis I mission.
The Perseverance rover with the Ingenuity helicopter on board landed in the Jezero crater on February 18, 2021, and helped to get new information about what ancient Mars could have been billions of years ago. During its almost 2.5 years on Mars, Perseverance traveled 18.87 km collecting samples and dropping sample tubes in preparation for the sample return mission to Mars. The Ingenuity helicopter made its first flight to Mars on April 19, 2021, and successfully completed 51 flights, flying 91.4 flight minutes over a distance of 11.7 km with a maximum height of 18 m.
Earlier we reported on how the Snoopy doll felt gravity inside Orion.
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