The Instrument Deployment Camera (IDC), located on the robotic arm of NASA's InSight lander, took this picture of the Martian surface on Nov. 26, 2018, the same day the spacecraft touched down on the Red Planet. The camera's transparent dust cover is still on in this image, to prevent particulates kicked up during landing from settling on the camera's lens. This image was relayed from InSight to Earth via NASA's Odyssey spacecraft, currently orbiting Mars. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech. Raw Image and Caption
NASA's InSight has sent signals to Earth indicating that its solar panels are open and collecting sunlight on the Martian surface. NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter relayed the signals, which were received on Earth at about 5:30 p.m. PST (8:30 p.m. EST). Solar array deployment ensures the spacecraft can recharge its batteries each day. Odyssey also relayed a pair of images showing InSight's landing site.
"The InSight team can rest a little easier tonight now that we know the spacecraft solar arrays are deployed and recharging the batteries," said Tom Hoffman, InSight's project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, which leads the mission. "It's been a long day for the team. But tomorrow begins an exciting new chapter for InSight: surface operations and the beginning of the instrument deployment phase."
InSight's twin solar arrays are each 7 feet (2.2 meters) wide; when they're open, the entire lander is about the size of a big 1960s convertible. Mars has weaker sunlight than Earth because it's much farther away from the Sun. But the lander doesn't need much to operate: The panels provide 600 to 700 watts on a clear day, enough to power a household blender and plenty to keep its instruments conducting science on the Red Planet. Even when dust covers the panels — what is likely to be a common occurrence on Mars — they should be able to provide at least 200 to 300 watts.
The panels are modeled on those used with NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander, though InSight’s are slightly larger in order to provide more power output and to increase their structural strength. These changes were necessary to support operations for one full Mars year (two Earth years).
In the coming days, the mission team will unstow InSight's robotic arm and use the attached camera to snap photos of the ground so that engineers can decide where to place the spacecraft's scientific instruments. It will take two to three months before those instruments are fully deployed and sending back data.
In the meantime, InSight will use its weather sensors and magnetometer to take readings from its landing site at Elysium Planitia — its new home on Mars.
About InSight
JPL manages InSight for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. InSight is part of NASA's Discovery Program, managed by the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built the InSight spacecraft, including its cruise stage and lander, and supports spacecraft operations for the mission.
A number of European partners, including France's Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES), the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (IPGP) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR), are supporting the InSight mission. CNES and IPGP provided the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) instrument, with significant contributions from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany, the Swiss Institute of Technology (ETH) in Switzerland, Imperial College and Oxford University in the United Kingdom, and JPL. DLR provided the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3) instrument, with significant contributions from the Space Research Center (CBK) of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Astronika in Poland. Spain’s Centro de Astrobiología (CAB) supplied the wind sensors.
For more information about InSight, visit: https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/
News Media Contact
Andrew Good
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-2433
andrew.c.good@jpl.nasa.gov
On Monday shortly before noon US west coast time (2000 ), NASA's  successfully touched down on  on Mars. It sent a signal beep and image of the surface of Mars to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in .
Artist's rendition of the InSight Lander showing the solar panels in their open position after landing, heat flow instrument in the deployed position, and seismometer. 

The lander used  with a heat shield, then a parachute and finally rockets to achieve a soft landing on the surface. It used similar entry, descent, and landing sequence to the .

Insight project manager Tom Hoffman said, "We hit the Martian atmosphere at 12,300  miles per hour; 19,800 , and the whole sequence to touching down on the surface took only six and a half minutes ... During that short span of time, InSight had to autonomously perform dozens of operations and do them flawlessly — and by all indications, that is exactly what our spacecraft did."

''InSight'' stands for ''Interior exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport''. The lander's two-year mission is to assess what Mars is like underground, determining the planet's heat flow and listening to the reverberations of groundquakes and meteorite impacts.

Acting director of NASA's Planetary Science Division Lori Glaze said, "We've studied Mars from orbit and from the surface since 1965, learning about its weather, atmosphere, geology and surface chemistry ... Now we finally will explore inside Mars and deepen our understanding of our terrestrial neighbor as NASA prepares to send human explorers deeper into the solar system."

InSight is expected to begin its mission in a few months, once it has placed the equipment on the surface of Mars. Its solar panels are now open, catching sunlight and powering the spacecraft. It is equipped to drive a device up to 16  (5 ) down into Mars's surface, a record for Mars probes. This is to help characterize heat flow from the planet. Insight also has ultra sensitive seismometers which it is to use to detect Mars earthquakes for the first time.  By recording the seismic waves from these quakes, InSight would help scientists infer things about the interior of Mars, such as how seismically active it is. InSight has as single , with which NASA plans to assess signals from different types of vibrational wave, triangulate their sources, and so derive information about the planetary interior. 

InSight was launched May 5 of this year and traveled reportedly 301,223,981 miles (somewhat over 484,773,000 kilometres) between planets followed by two suitcase-sized cube satellites called , individually MarCO-A and MarCO-B, which relayed information to Earth during the landing process.

Previous successful landers on Mars include '''', '''', '''', '''', '''', ''Phoenix'', and . Of these, only ''Curiosity'' is still in communication with Earth, after NASA lost communication with ''Opportunity'' in June. InSight's landing spot in the Elysium Planitia is about 600 km from ''Curiosity'''s landing site in .