CHEERS and applause erupted at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) on Monday as a waist-high unmanned lander, called InSight, touched down on Mars, capping a nearly seven-year journey from design to launch to landing.

The dramatic arrival of the US$993 million spacecraft — designed to listen for quakes and tremors as a way to unveil the Red Planet’s inner mysteries, how it formed billions of years ago and, by extension, how other rocky planets like Earth took shape — marked the eighth successful landing on Mars in NASA’s history.

The vehicle appeared to be in good shape, according to the first communications received from the Martian surface.

But as expected, the dust kicked up during the landing obscured the first picture InSight sent back, which was heavily flecked. Next, InSight must open its solar arrays, as NASA waits until later in the afternoon to learn if that final, crucial phase went as planned.

The spacecraft is meant to be solar-powered once it reaches the surface of Mars.

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

More than half of the 43 attempts to reach Mars with rovers, orbiters and probes by space agencies from around the world have failed.

NASA is the only space agency to have made it, and is invested in these robotic missions as a way to prepare for the first Mars-bound human explorers in the 2030s.  (SD-Agencies)