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Here’s Your Chance to Own a Curiosity Rover 3D Printed Model

Believe it or not, NASA has been releasing all types of 3D models of its probes and spacecraft for about a year now. Fans of space travel were able to download the kits thus creating a hell of a spaceship memorabilia for their home desk. However, no such assemblage is complete without one of the Agency’s most famous craft, the Curiosity Rover.
Self-portrait of Curiosity in Gale Crater on the surface of Mars 1 photo
Photo: NASA
Fortunately, that is about to change, considering NASA recently released the last missing part of the puzzle. Here’s how they describe the Rover:

Curiosity is a car-sized robotic rover exploring Gale Crater on Mars as part of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission (MSL). Curiosity was launched from Cape Canaveral on November 26, 2011, at 10:02 EST aboard the MSL spacecraft and landed on Aeolis Palus in Gale Crater on Mars on August 6, 2012, 05:17 UTC. The Bradbury Landing site was less than 2.4 km (1.5 mi) from the center of the rover's touchdown target after a 563,000,000 km (350,000,000 mi) journey.

The kit is free to download on NASA’s website and even though you need a 3D printer to get the scaled model it shouldn’t be too difficult to get it done. In fact, you don’t need to spend hundreds of dollars on a home unit. Instead, you can always use an online service that will print it for you.

Last time we were talking about Mars and NASA’s missions in outer space, we mentioned the 8-minute video of Opportunity’s 11-year mission to Mars. Thinking of that, we were wondering what the differences between the two are.

We’re not planning to go into the specifics, but we can tell you this much, just like his brother, Curiosity also has indefinitely extended its initially planned mission. The Rover’s design will serve as the basis for a planned Mars 2020 rover mission, that is if humans will actually be ready for that trip in five years' time.
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