NASA’s new Mars rover, Curiosity, is speeding on its way to meet the Red Planet. While we’re still waiting to see this beautiful machine rolling around on Mars, it’s possible to find its full-scale official JPL twin here on Earth at the Exploratorium in San Francisco.

We visited the museum to get a glimpse of the model and talk to Exploratorium senior scientist Paul Doherty about the one-ton rover, which is packed with scientific gear. Standing next to the model, you get a distinct sense of the rover’s impressive size and scale and a close-up view of all it’s parts. The five-year-old in you may want to climb right on top and get a ride across the Martian terrain (it’s unfortunately roped off).

Curiosity is NASA’s latest flagship Mars mission, dwarfing previous rovers such as Spirit and Opportunity. After landing in Gale crater, it has a preliminary two-year mission to study Mars for signs of habitability and unravel the planet’s complex watery past. If life did every arise on the Red Planet, there’s a good chance that Curiosity will discover important clues to where and how it formed. The rover is set to touch down on Mars tonight just after 10:30 p.m Pacific (1:30 a.m. Eastern).

[via Wired Science]