Congratulations are rolling in for the Mars InSight team after NASA successfully touched down on the Red Planet.
NASA confirmed the successful landing at 2:53 p.m. EST (1953 GMT) through two small satellites called the Mars Cube One, which were designed to travel with InSight and speed up engineers' knowledge of how the spacecraft was fairing. As it turned out, that trial mission succeeded with flying colors, also conveying InSight's first photograph of its new home on Mars.
One of the first onlookers to chime in with congratulations for the team was Vice President Mike Pence, who chairs the National Space Council, an advisory group to the president. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, who was at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California for the landing, said during live coverage that he received a congratulatory phone call as well.
Legislators chimed in to congratulate NASA and the InSight team as well, including Marco Rubio, the outgoing governor of Florida and incoming senator from the same state, and New York Senator Chuck Schumer.
Space fans, of course, were quick to celebrate the successful landing as well. The European Space Agency sent congratulations from across the pond, and U.S. commercial space company SpaceX tweetd in celebration as well.
Celebrity science communicator Bill Nye was on the scene at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California and shared a selfie with the first image from InSight shortly after the data came through.
Astronauts also shared their congratulations on the feat, including four-time shuttle veteran Ellen Ochoa and Scott Kelly, who spent nearly a year in space.
Of course, not everyone was quite so serious in congratulating the InSight team for sticking their landing. Adam Savage, the former co-host of the television show "Mythbusters," lightened the mood on Twitter soon after touchdown, reminding us all of what an incredible feat the landing process is.
Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her @meghanbartels. Follow us @Spacedotcom and Facebook. Original article on Space.com.
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