With its bulky body, spindly legs, radioactive tail and a towering stalk with a single eye, Nasa’s latest Mars rover is not something you would want to come across on a dark night. Fortunately, we are standing in the warm California sunshine at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena and this full-sized model of Nasa’s Mars rover is not going anywhere. It is, however, impressively substantial. The size of a family car, it looms beside us.

“It is very big,” says project scientist, Ken Farley. “The size is motivated by the need to drive across rugged terrain and carry a large number of science instruments.”

The Mars 2020 rover – named for its 2020 launch date – is based on the same basic structure as Nasa’s Curiosity rover. Since landing in 2012, Curiosity has notched up some 10 miles of exploration and is now, painfully slowly, making its way up 5.5km-high Mount Sharp.

“The rovers are capable of doing the same sorts of things – in the same way that if you have a pick-up truck you can look at lots of different applications,” says Farley. “We have a different set of science goals to Curiosity and different science instruments.”