"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 new 800-pound (360-kg) spacecraft marks the 21st U.S.-launched Martian
exploration, dating to the Mariner fly-by missions of the 1960s. Nearly two dozen
other Mars missions have been launched by other nations.

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."

See:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-s...-idUSKBN1I60DF