VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- NASA launched its Mars InSight lander from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

  • NASA launched its Mars InSight lander from the West Coast
  • It will take over 6 months for the lander to reach Mars
  • It will collect data to help scientists to better understand the planet

The spacecraft was atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.

It became the first interplanetary mission to depart from the West Coast.

“This is a big day, we're going back to Mars,” NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a call to the InSight team after launch. “This is an extraordinary mission with a whole hosts of firsts.”

Bridenstine took charge of the agency last month.

InSight will take just over six months to reach the Red Planet. Once there, InSight will conduct excavations of the planet. The lander will take a deeper look at Mars, monitoring vibrations caused by “marsquakes” and other events.

Scientists will use the data to see how Mars differs from Earth.

Most recently, the last spacecraft NASA sent to Mars was the Curiosity rover in 2011.