NASA's InSight spacecraft after seven months of a journey has successfully landed on the red planet's interior. The first robotic lander is designed to study the deep interior of a distant world.
NASA's InSight spacecraft, the first robotic lander designed to study the deep interior of a distant world, touched down safely on the surface of Mars on Monday with instruments to detect planetary seismic rumblings never measured anywhere but Earth.
Engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) near Los Angeles burst into cheers, applause and hugs as they received signals confirming InSight's arrival on Martian soil - a vast, barren plain near the planet's equator - shortly before 3 pm EST (2000 GMT)
Minutes later, JPL controllers received a fuzzy "selfie" photograph of the probe's new surroundings on the Red Planet, showing the edge of one lander leg beside a rock.
Watch parties for NASA's live television coverage of the event were held at museums, libraries and other public venues around the world, including Times Square, where a small crowd of 40 or 50 people braved pouring rain to witness the broadcast on a giant TV screen affixed to a wall of the Nasdaq building.
InSight's descent and landing, consisting of about 1,000 individual steps that had to be flawlessly executed to achieve success, capped a six-month journey of 301 million miles (548 million km) from Earth.
The spacecraft was launched from California in May on its nearly $1 billion mission. It will spend the next 24 months - about one Martian year - collecting a wealth of data to unlock mysteries about how Mars formed and, by extension, the origins of the Earth and other rocky planets of the inner solar system.
"The reason why we're digging into Mars is to better understand not just Mars, but the Earth itself," said JPL's Bruce Banerdt, InSight's principal investigator.
A central question is why Mars, once a relatively warm, wet planet, evolved so differently from Earth into a mostly dry, desolate and cold world, devoid of life.
1. Final preparations
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NASA's InSight spacecraft, destined for the Elysium Planitia region located in Mars'' northern hemisphere, undergoes final preparations at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, US, April 6, 2018.
Photo Credits: Reuters
2. NASA engineers celebrate
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NASA engineers Kris Bruvold (L) and Sandy Krasner react in the space flight operation facility at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) as the spaceship InSight lands on the surface of Mars after a six-month journey, in Pasadena, California, U.S. November 26, 2018.
Photo Credits: Reuters
3. Media watch off TV screens
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Members of the media watch off television screens the successful landing of the InSight on Mars at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California on November 26, 2018. Cheers and applause erupted at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory as a $993 million unmanned lander, called InSight, touched down on the Red Planet and managed to send back its first picture.
Photo Credits: AFP
4. Security officer records events
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A security officer records the events at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) after the spaceship Insight landed on the surface of Mars at JPL in Pasadena, California, US November 26, 2018.
Photo Credits: Reuters
5. NASA's USD 993 million Mars InSight
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In this frame grab taken from NASA TV on November 26, 2018, debris is seen on the lens in the first image from NASA's InSight lander after it touched down on the surface of Mars. NASA's USD 993 million Mars InSight lander has successfully touched down on the Red Planet to listen for quakes and study how rocky planets formed, the US space agency said.
Photo Credits: AFP
6. First kind of spacecraft into deep space
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The MarCo, one of two CubeSats launched and following the InSight, marking the first time this kind of spacecraft has flown into deep space, are displayed at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California on November 26, 2018. Cheers and applause erupted at NASA''s Jet Propulsion Laboratory as a $993 million unmanned lander, called InSight, touched down on the Red Planet and managed to send back its first picture.
Photo Credits: AFP
