Insight Landing: US spacecraft lands on Mars,, starts exploration

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It took six months to get there but NASA's Insight spacecraft is now resting comfortably on the surface of Mars. InSight landed Monday, and will soon conduct geological scientific exploration on Mars that could tell scientists more about the history of Earth. CGTN's Hendrik Sybrandy reports from the US state of Colorado.

At Lockheed Martin, the builders of the InSight spacecraft, employees and their families gathered for a Mars landing that's never automatic. The success rate for such endeavors over the years is just 40 percent.

BETH BUCK, MANAGER LOCKHEED MARTIN MISSION OPERATIONS PROGRAM "Landing on Mars is very hard. We've done everything. We can prepare the team, prepare the spacecraft, but now we need a little bit of luck on our side as well."

It's a complex but risky process where all kinds of things can go wrong. This spacecraft, out of touch with Earth, slowed from 21,000 kilometers per hour when it hit Mars' atmosphere to zero at the surface seven minutes later.

"It's the seven minutes of terror."

"17 meters, standing by for touchdown."

A pair of small satellites tracked InSight all the way down to the planet.

"Touchdown confirmed."

The feat was celebrated here in Colorado.

And at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California which is in charge of a mission that began six months and nearly 500 million kilometers ago. The landing complete, attention now turns to the science this three-legged geologist will perform.

HENDRIK SYBRANDY LITTLETON, COLORADO "This is a very different kind of Mars mission. The focus over the next two Earth years won't be on the surface of the planet so much as what lies deep inside."

Using a robotic arm, InSight will deploy a high-tech seismometer built by the French space agency to listen for Martian earthquakes as well as a self-hammering nail with heat sensors built by the German space agency that will dig five meters below the surface to gauge the planet's internal temperature. All to better understand a place that's been much less geologically active than Earth.

BRUCE BANERDT INSIGHT PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR "On Mars, all those things that were formed in the first few tens of millions of years after formation are still frozen in place and so we can basically use Mars as a time machine to go back and look at what the Earth must have looked like a few tens of millions of years after it formed."

TIM LINN, DESCENT & LANDING MANAGER LOCKHEED MARTIN ENTRY "So we're trying to understand that connection. We're trying to understand a body that's smaller, a body that although it was formed 4 1/2 billion years ago along with Earth it has formed differently."

Information gathered during this mission could be useful when humans travel to the planet in the future. Shortly after the landing, InSight beamed back this photo. It will take several months for the spacecraft to deploy its science instruments. Then, for those who've long wanted to dig deeply into Mars, the real fun begins. Hendrik Sybrandy, CGTN, Littleton, Colorado.