By Mary O’KEEFE

Paul Backes, shown here, joined fellow engineers and scientists at Jet Propulsion Laboratory for a demonstration of the Axel rover and the proposed scientific equipment that will be part of a future mission. The demonstration was on Wednesday afternoon at the Mars yard, a red planet model on the lab. Backes demonstrated the proposed drill that will take core samples from rocks and store them for a future mission to retrieve and bring back to Earth. NASA Chief Technologist Bobby Braun was at JPL also and he joined in the tour of the Mars robotics program. For the entire story visit www.cvweekly.com.

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