NASA is taking its newest Mars exploration technologies out of the lab and into Earth's most brutal deserts, pushing drones, walking robots and experimental flyers through scorching heat, shifting dunes and barren terrain to see whether they can survive — and navigate — on Mars.
From Death Valley's towering sand ridges to the bone-dry plains of New Mexico's White Sands, engineers are discovering that the Red Planet's closest analogues on Earth deliver lessons no simulation can match.
