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Lego’s Mars Rover Perseverance has 360-degree steering and a swinging arm

Lego’s Mars Rover Perseverance has 360-degree steering and a swinging arm

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Lego Technic recreates the coolest part of the rover.

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A six-wheeled Lego mars rover, with some of its wheels turning independently.
Image: Lego

Lego’s last Mars Rover was a little simplistic (pdf) — so I’m glad to see that the new Lego Technic NASA Mars Rover Perseverance, just announced today for $100, puts more of the real rover’s engineering front and center.

With the flick of a lever, the rover’s iconic six-wheel suspension spins a set of ball-tipped gears — to turn four of its wheels inward so you can spin the entire craft 360-degrees. You can switch back and forth between that 360-degree mode and a normal driving mode, much like you can see in the NASA JPL video here:

There’s also pair of additional dials on the back to move the sample arm up, down, left and right for play. It’s a fairly large set, at 9 inches high, 9 inches wide, and 12.5 inches long.

Enhance. Click for larger image.
Enhance. Click for larger image.
Image: Lego

And, there’s an AR app if you’d like to pretend you’re collecting rock samples. Lego says it’ll also include “exciting, educational content getting to know the real-life vehicle and its mission on Mars,” as well as a way to view the local weather on the Red Planet.

Image: Lego

It’s not clear from the company’s press release if this set will be compatible with Lego’s motors to do any autonomous moving or steering, but Percy does come with a tiny Mars Ingenuity helicopter, too.

Lego says the 1,132-piece set will ship June 1st, except weirdly in the United States and possibly Canada where it’ll ship August 1st instead. Here are a few more pictures to tide you over.

Update, 12:49AM ET: Lego now says it will ship August 1st in the United States. It originally told us June, and that’s correct for other regions but strangely not here.