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Cassandra Klos

Bruce Banerdt, principal investigator on the InSight lander, stands near a replica of InSight used to simulate the landing weeks ahead of the actual touchdown.

A team of scientists works with a replica of the InSight lander in the In Situ Instrument Laboratory at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory on November 6, 2018. The team practises sculpting a 'workspace' using HoloLens headsets, which display digital models of terrain they might encounter on Mars.

InSight principal investigator Bruce Banerdt (centre) stands with the spacecraft replica in the In Situ Instrument Lab. He and the other scientists are tethered to the replica so that they don't accidentally dissipate electrostatic shocks, which can affect the testbed’s electronics.

Engineers in the In Situ Instrument Lab dig a trench that corresponds to the augmented-reality landscape they are seeing through their headsets.

While wearing a HoloLens headset, InSight testbed lead Marleen Sundgaard shapes the workspace for setting down the replica spacecraft's instruments.

Scientists work on the Mars2020 rover inside the Spacecraft Assembly Facility at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.

An airlock inside the habitat at the Mars Desert Research Station.

Crew 155 performs a "space walk" during a mission at the Mars Desert Research Station.

People visit the Rocket Park at Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas.

The desert soil looks and feels a lot like the red planet's surface at the Mars Desert Research Station.