Nasa's Spirit rover sent its first images of Mars to jubilant scientists here early Sunday after a jarring landing on the red planet.
The dramatic black and white photographs, showing the robot resting in front of a large boulder in the middle of a rock-strewn plain, were projected on screens in the mission control room at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory here.
Just prior to receiving the images, NASA announced that the robot was in "safe mode" after completing several post-landing tasks - deflating air cushions that buffered its landing, opening the cone that housed it and deploying solar panels to protect it from frigid Martian temperatures.
The space probe plunged through the fiery Martian atmosphere for six minutes, then bounced along the planet's rocky surface, with an approximate landing time of 8:35 pm Saturday (0435 GMT Sunday).
About 20 minutes later mission control erupted in cheers, hugs and tears when a signal from the craft indicated it was still functioning.
With that, NASA accomplished the most difficult part of its Martian adventure, landing the first of two twin robots on the red planet for the most ambitious scientific exploration of Earth's neighbour ever undertaken.
A second NASA rover, Opportunity, is scheduled to land on Mars on January 25, on the opposite side of the planet.
"We're on Mars. It's an absolutely incredible accomplishment," said NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe, who poured champagne for the leaders of the mission team at the start of a press conference.
"We never get it right when we practice this, but this went to perfection," said Mars program chief engineer Rob Manning. "Everything happened right when we expected it to happen."
Memories of that disaster were momentarily erased late Saturday with the images sent by the Spirit Rover. The landing procedure began at around 7:22 pm (322 GMT Sunday) when the probe successfully rotated its thermal shield forward to protect it from the heat of the Martian atmosphere.
Before taking the plunge, Spirit separated from the cruising stage rocket that had carried it for seven months and over 300 million miles (500 million kilometre's) from Earth.
Less than two minutes before landing, the engine opened its parachute and, 20 seconds later, the probe jettisoned the spent lead edge of its heat shield, exposing the rover's protective cone, encased in uninflated air cushions.
Six seconds before hitting the surface, the cushions inflated, and rockets on the upper shell of the shield fired to stabilise the engine. At about 15 meters (50 feet) from the surface, the tether to the parachute was cut.
The robot then fell freely, bouncing a dozen times on the surface before coming to rest up to a kilometre (half a mile) away.
Nasa's triumph comes just days after the planned December 25 arrival of the ill-fated European robot Beagle 2, which has not been heard from since that date.
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