The Curiosity robot landed on Mars on Monday to make an ambitious mission to detect any traces of extraterrestrial life, said the U.S. Space Agency (NASA) in Pasadena (California).
"Arrival confirmed," said the 05H31 GMT a member of mission control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) of NASA, triggering a burst of celebrations.
"We put wheels on Mars. My God, "he added, after receiving the first signals that the vehicle, 900 kilos, had reached the red planet after a complex operation.
A second burst of joy came shortly after when the robot sent his first picture of startling clarity, which portrays his own shadow in the martian soil.
President Barack Obama hailed the performance of a "technological feat unprecedented."
The expedition was a risky bet, which required an investment of 2,500 million dollars.
The vehicle-robot ("rover") was released on November 26, 2011 on an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral 541 (Florida). In his eight months and a half flight covered 570 million kilometers.
Among its objectives, the mission includes the search for traces of past life on the fourth planet from the sun, the closest to Earth.
Some scientists wore amulets and other invoked the spirits of the nation, as a team member who dyed her hair flying in the colors of the American flag.
In fact, less than half of the attempts made by space agencies worldwide to reach Mars have been successful since 1960.
"It's a great day for the nation (U.S.), a great day for all our partners who have material (in vehicle) and a great day for the American people," said NASA administrator, Charles Bolden.
Scientists have discovered evidence of water on Mars, indicating that some form of microbial life could have developed in the past on this planet now has a thin atmosphere, extreme winter and dust storms.
The site chosen for the decline is the Gale Crater, near Mount Sharp (5,000 m). It is one of the lowest places on Mars and convergence point of several rivers that are believed flowed from upland areas, which may contain valuable information about the past in its sedimentary layers.
Curiority, equipped with six wheels and ten-space instruments including 17 cameras, a laser capable of destroying rocks and a series of laboratory tools to analyze its composition, will also seek to collect data to prepare a future manned mission.
Its operation will be secured by a nuclear generator.
Curiosity will give "a huge step in planetary exploration," said Jon Holdren, science adviser to Obama.
The decline in the Martian soil was a complex operation, because we had to reduce the momentum of 21,243 kilometers per hour, only 2.74 kilometers per hour, through the deployment of a large parachute and spatial activation of a crane to deposit slowly the robot.
Curiosity thus joins the list of successful missions in NASA Mars as Viking 1 and 2 (1976), Pathfinder (1997), Marz Exploration Rovers (2004) and Phoenix (2008).
