NASA Launches Mission to Investigate Mars

The United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas-V rocket is seen with NASA's InSight spacecraft onboard, at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, U.S., May 3, 2018. Courtesy of NASA/Bill Ingalls/Handout via REUTERS

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif.—An Atlas 5 rocket soared into space early on Saturday, May 5, 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 a.m.PDT, treating early-rising residents across a wide swath of the state to the luminous pre-dawn spectacle of the first U.S. interplanetary spacecraft to be launched over the Pacific.