This paper presents ongoing work at INRIA in collaboration with TRASYS on the mechanical modelling and simulation of planetary rovers. We focus our presentation on an specific approach used the INRIA SICONOS software. This approach [2] based on the nonsmooth Mechanics theory is dedicated to the modeling and the simulation of multi-body systems with joints, hard contacts, Coulomb's friction and impacts. In addition, software integration aspects are considered defining and implementing generic software interfaces between SICONOS and external 3D tools. The approach is applied to the rover planetary operations enhancing the fidelity and the genericity of the ExoMars existing rover mechanical models