It's hard to believe that it's been nearly a year since the Mars rover Curiosity made its landing on the Martian surface, but a year it has been, nearly. To commemorate the event, and also accede to some recent demands from the fan base, Lego is rolling out—so to speak—a new model in its CUUSOO product line: a Lego model of the Curiosity rover.

The CUUSOO set—which in Japanese reportedly means “imagination” or even “wish” in some contexts—is part of a development website where visitors can go and see new concepts on display, and then vote for the model set most desired to become an actual CUUSOO release. Meanwhile, Lego fans can also submit models for consideration, with models needing 10,000 votes from other fans before the larger Lego company will consider said models for release. Curiosity's model, meanwhile, managed to garner the necessary votes just weeks after the actual Curiosity touched down inside the Gale Crater on the Martian surface.

Given that the Curiosity model's creator was one of the creators of the actual model—Stephen Pakbaz, otherwise known as “Perijove” on CUUSOO, was involved in both design and testing on the Curiosity rover at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.—it's a safe bet that this is a particularly authentic model, or as authentic as a Lego version can get, anyway. Pakbaz was hoping that a model could be realized while the actual version was rolling on Mars, so as to allow students the chance to track Curiosity's progress on Mars and better keep up with what the rover was doing on the planet at the time, according to an interview with collectSPACE.com.

Reports indicate that the model contains many of the same features that the original does, only in Lego. Its “rocker-bogie” wheel suspension, that allows Curiosity to move over harsh terrain, is in place, and Pakbaz even modeled the “sky crane” descent stage that got Curiosity to the Martian surface in the first place.

But this isn't the first time Lego has drawn on the world of real-life space for its models; in March 2012, Lego brought out the Hayabusa asteroid-sampling probe from Japan's space program in model form. Additionally, Lego minifigures—those charming little yellow-headed folk with claw-grip hands—have been part of several NASA missions. Earlier this month, NASA and Lego even announced a joint design contest for advanced craft, both spacecraft and aircraft alike.

Lego has been a part of a lot of people's lives, both in childhood and beyond. Those snap-together building blocks have brought imaginations to life for decades, and there's little sign Lego will stop any time soon. Adding real-world designs to Lego only improves things, making real-world concepts like engineering and space travel more accessible to the youth of today. Lego is more than just play...Lego is an active building system. Lego is making a big advancement in building tomorrow as well.