1996 · Planetary Rover Test Twin · Work 1111 of 1,871
An indoor test yard in a laboratory hall in Pasadena late at night, reddish sand strewn with angular grey-brown stones under high white floodlights, a small six-wheeled rover seventy centimetres long creeping toward a stone, on top a flat square black solar panel with a fine grid of cells and thin silver lines, tiny red, blue, green and orange patches along one edge, beneath it a box in crinkled gold foil with loose white, blue and yellow cables, six silver wheels with many pointed cleats on silver rocker arms, thin black-and-white ringed rods at the front, fine tracks in the sand behind, a hand pressing a small white peg into the sand.