NASA's InSight lands on Mars, sends first pictures

New Delhi : Cheers and applause were seen at the NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Monday as its unmanned lander – InSight – successfully landed on the surface of Red Planet. Based on the first pictures sent by the spacecraft, it looks to be in good shape so far.

With a seven years of journey time, this is the eighth successful landing of an spacecraft on Mars. "Touchdown confirmed," a mission control operator at NASA said.

InSight will now open its solar arrays to ensure everything goes as per plan.

NASA's InSight purpose of the mission

The $993 million spacecraft is designed to learn quake and tremor activities on planet to unveil the inner mysteries.

InSight contains key instruments that were contributed by several European space agencies.

France's Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) made the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) instrument, the key element for sensing quakes.

The German Aerospace Center (DLR) provided a self-hammering mole that can burrow 16 feet (five meters) into the surface -- further than any instrument before -- to measure heat flow.

Spain's Centro de Astrobiologia made the spacecraft's wind sensors.

Other significant contributions came from the Space Research Center of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Astronika, the Swiss Institute of Technology and Britain's Imperial College London and Oxford University.

Together it will attempt to create a 3D picture of the Red Planet.

The spacecraft is NASA's first to attempt to touch down on Earth's neighboring planet since the Curiosity rover arrived in 2012.