This is the new Hot Wheels Mars Perseverance Rover, a detailed replica model of 1:64 based on the actual rover that will land on Mars on February 18, 2021. Image via CollectSPACE / David Chickering / Mattel.
The landing of the Perseverance rover on Mars is now just days past – on February 18, 2021 – and the toy maker company Mattel is helping celebrate! The creator of the hugely popular Hot Wheels series is launching a new cast scale model – the Hot Wheels Mars Perseverance Rover, inspired by the real rover – to celebrate the occasion of the landing.
How to see live coverage of the throughput landing
The new Hot Wheels model, a detailed replica of Perseverance on a scale of 1:64 (about 8 cm long), is part of a new space-themed mini-collection, the first in more than 20 years . It is intended for children three years and older and will be sold at a suggested retail price of $ 1.09 USD. We have not yet found a place to buy the new Hot Wheels rover online, but it has presumably been available in stores since the end of January. Try searching for ‘Hot Wheels retailers near me’.
Manson Cheung, staff sculptor and chief 3D model for Mattel Hot Wheels, said in a post on CollectSpace.com:
We want the car to be there so kids have it in their hands when the real robber lands in February. We want kids to be like, ‘Oh, I have the rover in my hand and I can see it on Mars,’ so there’s a connection for the kids, not just with Hot Wheels, but also with space.
The Hot Wheels Mars Perseverance Rover, as seen in the packaging in stores. Image via Mattel / YongTing Neoh.
According to Mattel’s press release:
Fans of space exploration and Hot Wheels enthusiasts of all ages can revisit the fascinating journey of NASA’s Perseverance Rover as it studies the Martian landscape and looks for signs of ancient microbial life, collecting monsters in the coming year.
The Hot Wheels Mars Perseverance Rover honors the leading tools and technologies that will help pave the way for human missions to Mars, by studying critical data on Mars’ geology and climate, and ultimately sending Mars monsters back to Earth.
Hot Wheels and NASA have a partnership that spans more than 30 years, starting in the mid-1980s. The first NASA model made by Hot Wheels was the Sojourner Mars Rover in 1996, part of the company’s then Action Packs. Then came the Apollo Mission (1998), the Galileo Mission (1999), John Glenn (1999) and JPL Returns to Mars (1999).
Hot Wheels design teams can tour the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to see the actual spacecraft before launching.
Due to the huge interest in children and the general public in space, Hot Wheels has brought back the Space mini collection for 2021. Needless to say, the Perseverance Rover is a perfect addition to the collection.
A closer look at the Hot Wheels Mars Perseverance Rover model. Image via Mattel / Zhiming Law.
Scott Shaffstall, senior liaison manager for vehicles, action figures and licenses at Mattel, added:
NASA’s Perseverance Rover, just in its name, goes hand in hand with Hot Wheels’ spray of ‘Challenge Accepted’. The vision of trying, failing, repeating until it is right is very much linked.
In our minds, this mission is already a success because it moves the needle and brings us one step closer to Mars.
The mini-collection of space was brought back in 2021 due to the growing interest of children and the general public about space exploration. The rover was obviously suitable and we knew it would hit Mars.
Perseverance will land on March 18 in Jezero Crater on Mars. Its primary mission is to search for evidence of ancient microbial lives. Design-wise, the rover looks a lot like the Curiosity Rover, currently in Gale Crater, but it has different scientific tools. While Curiosity focuses on evidence of habitability in the past, which it has done, perseverance is in search of direct evidence of life itself. This will be the first mission since the Viking 1 and 2 landers in the late 1970s / early 1980s to do so.
Diagram of the real Perseverance rover showing the different science instruments. Image via NASA.
The Jezero crater used to be a lake a few billion years ago and contains rich sediments and clay that could possibly contain clues to microbial life, if any. The rover will land near an ancient river delta inside the crater, still clearly visible, where a river once empties into the lake. The Jezero Crater is therefore an excellent place to search for Martian life.
Perseverance even has a companion, a small drunken helicopter named Ingenuity, who will try to be the first plane ever flown on Mars. It will fly in front of the robber, looking for good places for perseverance to stop and do analyzes and collect the collection of rocks and soil. The laboratory on board the Rover can do thorough analyzes itself, but some samples are also stored for later return to Earth by another mission. Labs on Earth can then do much more detailed study of the samples in search of evidence from past lives.
In 2012, Mattel also made a similar toy replica of the still-active Curiosity rover.
In short: Mattel, the popular Hot Wheels toy manufacturer, has just released a new Hot Wheels Mars Perseverance Rover to help NASA celebrate the landing of its Perseverance rover on Mars on February 18th.
Via CollectSPACE
