Like NASA's Curiosity rover, NASA’s InSight lander has a full-scale working model at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California (nasajpl). This sister lander, aptly named ForeSight, lets the team test all operations before they happen on Mars. To practice how InSight will place its instruments, JPL engineers built a Martian rock garden modeled on images from the spacecraft's cameras. The team raked, shoveled and patted down a bed of crushed garnet intended to simulate Martian sand. They call the shaping of this gravel-like material "Marsforming." In this picture, engineers practice deploying InSight's instruments at JPL. Several of them are wearing sunglasses to block the bright yellow lights in the test space, which mimic sunlight as it appears on Mars. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/IPGP #nasa #jpl #space #science #solarsystem #rockgarden #insight #mars #engineers #explore #moontomars