NASA's InSight lands on Mars after six months of travel

The flight controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, jumped out of their seats and burst out in howls, applause and laughter when the news arrived.

"Touchdown confirmed!", Announces a flight controller.

The vehicle seemed in good condition, according to the first communications received.

It is the first spacecraft built to explore the deep interior of another world, carrying instruments to detect planetary heat and seismic rumblings never measured elsewhere than on Earth.

After waiting for the suspensions to confirm that the men were coming from space, people kissed each other, shook hands, exchanged 50-year-olds, raised their fists, wiped their tears and danced in the aisles.

"Flawless," said JPL Chief Engineer Rob Manning. "That's what we really hoped and imagined in our minds," he said. "Sometimes things work in your favor."

Vice President Mike Pence has called to congratulate the US Space Agency for his hard work.

Because of the distance between Earth and Mars, the confirmation took eight minutes, relayed by a pair of tiny satellites that followed InSight throughout the journey of 482 million kilometers traveled in six months.

The two satellites not only delivered the good news almost in real time, but they also returned the first InSight camera snapshot to Mars, just four minutes after landing. The picture was covered with dust, because the dust cover was still visible on the LG camera, but at first glance the terrain was smooth and sandy, leaving only an imposing rock – pretty much what that scientists hoped.

Better images will arrive in the hours and days ahead.

"What a relief," Manning told AP. "It's really fantastic." He added, "Wow! It never gets old.

It was NASA's eighth successful landing on Earth since the 1976 Viking Probe, and the first in six years. The NASA Curiosity robot, arrived in 2012, is still moving on Mars.

The three-foot InSight probe, catapulted through a billion-dollar international initiative, was designed to bury itself beneath the surface of the red planet after the trip.

The spacecraft reached the surface after being slowed down by a parachute, supported by braking motors due to the weak atmosphere of Mars.

19 800KPH TO ZERO IN SIX MINUTES

The plan was that the spacecraft would go from 19,800 km / h to zero in six minutes as it entered the Martian atmosphere and settled on the surface.

"Landing on Mars is one of the most difficult jobs people have to do in planetary exploration," said Bruce Banerdt, Senior Scientist for InSight.

"It's so difficult, it's so dangerous that there is always a very good chance that something is not going well."

Mars has been the cemetery of a multitude of space missions. Until now, the success rate on the Red Planet was only 40%, counting all attempts at overflight, orbital flight and landing by the United States, Russia and other countries since 1960.

The United States has, however, made seven landings on Mars over the last four decades, not counting InSight, with only one touchdown. No other country has managed to install and operate a spacecraft on a dusty red surface.

We never take Mars for granted. Mars is difficult, "Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA's badociate director for the scientific mission, told reporters.

InSight fired for Elysium Planitia, a plain near the Martian equator that the InSight team hopes to be as flat as a parking lot in Kansas with little or no rocks. The first images seem to confirm that this has been achieved.

WHAT INSIGHT WILL DO

The stationary 360-kilogram landing gear will use its 1.8-meter robotic arm to place a mechanical mole and a seismometer on the ground. The self-hammering mole digs five meters down to measure the internal heat of the planet, while the seismometer listens to possible earthquakes.

Germany is responsible for InSight's mole, while France is responsible for the seismometer.

By examining the inside of Mars, scientists hope to understand how the rocky planets of our solar system were formed 4.5 billion years ago and why they turned out so different: cold and dry Mars, Venus and Mercury burning and Earth conducive to life.

InSight however has no life detection capability. These will be left to the attention of future rovers, such as NASA's Mars 2020 mission, which will collect rocks that will eventually be brought back to Earth and badyzed for traces of ancient life.

Earlier, Tim Hoffin, project manager, said the successful landing of InSight would not be fully visible for several hours.

"We will certainly have a celebration when we have managed to land but we will have to temper it a little while we wait about five and a half hours to know with certainty that we are in shape," he said.

InSight will spend 24 months, about a Martian year, reviewing Mars.

While Earth's tectonics and other forces have erased most of the early evidence, much of Mars would have remained largely static, creating a geological time machine for scientists.