Researchers at NASA and the University of California at Berkeley are developing a robot that’s robust enough to be dropped directly onto planets and go straight to work.

Current missions to Mars have been complex affairs, typically using parachutes to guide robots and their delicate scientific instruments down to the surface. In 2012, things got even more high-tech when the space agency used a hovering platform to lower the Mars Rover onto the planet.

In contrast, prototypes of the new robot resemble something a child might make in a craft class — one was a mass of wires, control cables and Lego bricks — but what it lacks in appearance it more than makes up for in physics.

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