NASA's InSight sends signals to Earth after landing on Mars and deploys solar panels

NASA's InSight probe sent signals to the Earth after its successful landing on Mars, indicating that its solar panels are open and capture sunlight on the Martian surface.

NASA 's Mars Odyssey orbiter relayed signals as well as images showing the landing site of InSight, according to a NASA statement released Tuesday.

The deployment of solar panels allows the spacecraft to recharge its batteries every day.

"The InSight team can rest a little easier tonight now that we know that the spacecraft's solar panels are deployed and are recharging the batteries," said Tom Hoffman, Project Manager InSight at NASA's Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

He stated that this opened an exciting new chapter for InSight: the surface operations and the beginning of the instrument deployment phase.

According to NASA, the two InSight solar panels measure 2.2 meters wide. When open, the entire landing gear is about the size of a 1960s big cabriolet.

Mars sunlight is weaker than Earth's because it is much farther away from the Sun. But the undercarriage does not need a lot to work. The panels provide 600 to 700 watts on a clear day, enough to keep the InSight instruments in the scientific research phase on the red planet, NASA said.

The panels are modeled on those used with NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander, although those of InSight are slightly larger in order to provide more power and increase their structural strength. These changes were needed to support operations for a full year on Mars (two Earth years), according to NASA.

In the coming days, the mission team will detach InSight's robotic arm and use the attached camera to take pictures of the ground so that engineers can choose the location of the scientific instruments of the probe. It will take two to three months before these instruments are fully deployed and return data.

Meanwhile, InSight will use its weather sensors and magnetometer to take readings from its landing site at Elysium Planitia, its new home on Mars.

The InSight probe landed safely on Mars on Monday after a six-month, 300-million kilometer (480 million-kilometer) journey to launch its two-year mission of inland exploration deep of another world.

Launched on May 5, InSight marks NASA's first landing on Mars since the 2012 Curiosity robot and the first dedicated to the study of the deep interior of Mars.