The first images from NASA’s new Mars probe may have thrilled space nuts - but they underwhelmed most of us.

Now InSight’s camera has sent back some clearer pictures of the Red Planet, showing a much lighter Mars than you would have imagined.

The photo also shows a dusty, rocky surface without any major craters in sight.

The new robotic resident sent signals to earth about 12.30pm AEST indicating its solar panels were open and it was collecting sunlight on the Martian surface.

The image was relayed from InSight to Earth via NASA’s Odyssey spacecraft, currently orbiting Mars.

“The InSight team can rest a little easier tonight now that we know the spacecraft solar arrays are deployed and recharging the batteries,” InSight’s project manager Tomm Hoffman said 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.”

Two hours after InSight touched down on Mars, scientists and technicians at the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex took control of NASA’s global network of communications systems.

It’s their job to send and receive signals from the InSight probe 54 million km away.

“For most of today, we’ll have responsibility for the initial communications with InSight as its science mission begins on the surface of Mars,” CSIRO spokesman Glen Nagle said.

The CSIRO-managed Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex, at Tidbinbilla, is a part of NASA’s Deep Space Network and provides two-way radio contact for dozens of robotic spacecraft exploring the Solar System and beyond, including the InSight mission on Mars.

The CDSCC’s sister station outside Madrid, Spain was the installation which connected NASA flight controllers with InSight during the landing phase and the link to the twin MarCo cubesats flying past Mars that provided a relay for those signals to Earth.

The control of Spain’s antennas was going through the Deep Space Network station in California and at 9am AEDT, the CSIRO-managed facility in Canberra took control of the entire network around the world.

“The commands being sent to InSight from the mission’s science team goes through the Deep Space Network, as well as all the data coming back from Mars from this fascinating mission,” Mr Nagle said.

“We’ve been tracking InSight since its launch in May this year, and will be with it throughout its two-year prime mission on the red planet.

“At its heart, InSight is a seismological mission at Mars, providing the first view into the interior of the planet. InSight will give scientists a greater understanding of the formation and early evolution of planetary formation, including Earth.”

InSight’s safe touchdown, makes it one of nine missions now operating at Mars.

“Mars continues to be the traffic jam of the solar system” Mr Nagle said. “And Mars is set to become even busier in the future, with more rovers and landers in the planning. One day, it will be a human setting foot on Mars’ surface, and that person is alive on Earth today.

“In the meantime, robotic ambassadors like InSight are paving the way for that next giant leap for humanity.”

TOUCHDOWN CONFIRMED
Flight controllers announced that the spacecraft InSight had reached the surface just before 7am AEDT, after a perilous supersonic descent through the red Martian skies.

Tweeting right after landing InSight offered the following eerie words from the alien world: “I feel you Mars … and soon I’ll know your heart. With this safe landing, I’m here. I’m home.”

InSight also shared the first picture from Mars on Twitter saying: “My lens cover isn’t off yet, but I just had to show you a first look at my new home.”

Flight controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, leapt out of their seats and erupted in screams, applause and laughter as the news came in.

“Touchdown confirmed!” a flight controller announced.

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

It’s the first spacecraft built to explore the deep interior of another world, carrying instruments to detect planetary heat and seismic rumblings never measured anywhere but earth.

After waiting in white-knuckle suspense for confirmation to arrive from space, people hugged, shook hands, exchanged high-fives, pumped their fists, wiped away tears and danced in the aisles.

“Flawless,” declared JPL’s chief engineer Rob Manning. “This is what we really hoped and imagined in our mind’s eye,” he said. “Sometimes things work out in your favour.”

Vice President Mike Pence called to congratulate the US space agency for its hard work.

Because of the distance between Earth and Mars, it took eight minutes for confirmation to arrive, relayed by a pair of tiny satellites that had been trailing InSight throughout the six-month, 482-million- kilometer journey.

The two satellites not only transmitted the good news in almost real time, they also sent back InSight’s first snapshot of Mars just 4 minutes after landing. The picture was speckled with dirt because the dust cover was still on the lander’s camera, but the terrain at first glance looked smooth and sandy with just one sizable rock visible - pretty much what scientists had hoped for.

Much better pictures will arrive in the hours and days ahead.

“What a relief,” Manning told AP. “This is really fantastic.” He added: “Wow! This never gets old.”

It was NASA’s - indeed, humanity’s - eighth successful landing at Mars since the 1976 Viking probes, and the first in six years. NASA’s Curiosity rover, which arrived in 2012, is still on the move on Mars.

The three-legged InSight probe, catapulted thanks to a $US1 billion international venture, was designed to burrow beneath the surface of the red planet after the journey.

The spacecraft reached the surface after being slowed by a parachute, supported by braking engines because of Mars’ thin atmosphere.

19,800KPH TO ZERO IN SIX MINUTES
The plan called for the spacecraft to go from 19,800 kph to zero in six minutes flat as it pierced the Martian atmosphere and settled on the surface.

“Landing on Mars is one of the hardest single jobs that people have to do in planetary exploration,” said InSight’s lead scientist, Bruce Banerdt.

“It’s such a difficult thing, it’s such a dangerous thing that there’s always a fairly uncomfortably large chance that something could go wrong.”

Mars has been the graveyard for a multitude of space missions. Up to now, the success rate at the red planet has been only 40 per cent, counting every attempted fly-by, orbital flight and landing by the US, Russia and other countries since 1960.

The US however, has pulled off seven successful Mars landings in the past four decades, not counting InSight, with only one failed touchdown. No other country has managed to set and operate a spacecraft on the dusty red surface.

We never take Mars for granted. Mars is hard,” Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA associate administrator for the science mission directorate told reporters.

InSight was shooting for Elysium Planitia, a plain near the Martian equator that the InSight team hopes is as flat as a parking lot in Kansas with few, if any, rocks. First images appear to confirm this has been achieved.

WHAT INSIGHT WILL DO
The stationary 360-kilogram lander will use its 1.8-metre robotic arm to place a mechanical mole and seismometer on the ground. The self-hammering mole will burrow five metres down to measure the planet’s internal heat, while the seismometer listens for possible quakes.

Germany is in charge of InSight’s mole, while France is in charge of the seismometer.

By examining the interior of Mars, scientists hope to understand how our solar system’s rocky planets formed 4.5 billion years ago and why they turned out so different — Mars cold and dry, Venus and Mercury burning hot, and Earth hospitable to life.

InSight has no life-detecting capability, however. That will be left to future rovers, such as NASA’s Mars 2020 mission, which will collect rocks that will eventually be brought back to Earth and analysed for evidence of ancient life.

Earlier, project manager Tim Hoffin said the success of the InSight landing won’t be fully clear for a number of hours.

“We’ll definitely have a celebration when we get successfully landed but we’re going to have to temper that just a little bit while we wait about five-and-a- half hours to know absolutely for sure we’re in good shape,” he said.

InSight will spend 24 months, about one Martian year, examining Mars.

While Earth’s tectonics and other forces have erased most evidence of its early history, much of Mars is believed to have remained largely static, creating a geological time machine for scientists.