First NASA lander to study Mars' interior launches from California
None
An Atlas 5 rocket soared into space early on Saturday from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, carrying NASA's first robotic lander designed for exploring the deep interior of another planet on its voyage to Mars.
The Mars InSight probe lifted off from the central California coast at 4:05 am PDT, treating early-rising residents across a wide swath of the state to the luminous pre-dawn spectacle of the first US interplanetary spacecraft to be launched over the Pacific.
It is due to reach its destination in six months, landing on a broad, smooth plain close to the planet's equator called the Elysium Planitia.
Once settled, the solar-powered InSight will spend two years - about one Martian year - plumbing the depths of the planet's interior for clues to how Mars took form and, by extension, the origins of the Earth and other rocky planets.
