(CNN) On Monday, the NASA Mars InSight lander survived the "seven minutes of terror" during entry, descent and landing to safely arrive on Mars and took up permanent residence on the Red Planet. Unlike the rovers already on the Martian surface, InSight will stay put during its planned two-year mission.

What will the stationary craft do until November 24, 2020?

InSight has already been busy. Since landing, it has taken two photos and sent them back as postcards to Earth, showing off its new home. These initial images are grainy because the dust shields haven't been removed from the camera lenses yet.

NASA's InSight acquired this image of the area in front of the lander right after landing.

And late Monday, mission scientists were able to confirm that the spacecraft's twin 7-foot-wide solar arrays have unfurled. With the fins folded out, InSight is about the size of a big 1960s convertible, NASA said.

"We are solar-powered, so getting the arrays out and operating is a big deal," said InSight project manager Tom Hoffman at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "With the arrays providing the energy, we need to start the cool science operations. We are well on our way to thoroughly investigate what's inside of Mars for the very first time."

The solar arrays are key to helping InSight function. Although Mars receives less sunlight than Earth, InSight doesn't need much power to conduct its science experiments. On clear days, the panels will provide InSight with between 600 and 700 watts -- enough to power the blender on your kitchen counter, NASA said. During more dusty conditions, as Mars is known to have, the panels can still pull in between 200 and 300 watts.

InSight took this image not long after landing.

Within the next few days, InSight's 5.9-foot-long robotic arm will unfold and take photos of the ground surrounding the lander. This will help mission scientists determine where it will place instruments.

This whole unpacking process as InSight settles into its new home will take about two to three months as the instruments begin functioning and sending back data.

The suite of geophysical instruments will take measurements of Mars' internal activity like seismology and the wobble as the sun and its moons tug on the planet.

These instruments include the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structures to investigate what causes the seismic waves on Mars, the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package to burrow beneath the surface and determine heat flowing out of the planet and the Rotation and Interior Structure Experiment to use radios to study the planet's core.

InSight will be able to measure quakes that happen anywhere on the planet. And it's capable of hammering a probe into the surface.

This is why the information InSight sends back about its landing site is crucial. Creating a 3D model of the surface will help engineers understand where to place instruments and hammer in the probe, called the Mars mole HP3 by those who built it.

"An ideal location for our Mars mole would be one that is as sandy as possible and does not contain any rocks," HP3 operations manager Christian Krause said.

Tilman Spohn, principal investigator of the HP3 experiment, said, "our plan is to use these measurements to determine the temperature of Mars' interior and to characterize the current geological activity beneath its crust. In addition, we want to find out how the interior of Mars developed, whether it still possesses a hot molten core and what makes Earth so special by comparison."

The first science data isn't expected until March, but InSight will be sharing snapshots of Mars along the way. And InSight's magnetometer and weather sensors are taking readings of the landing site, Elysium Planitia -- "the biggest parking lot on Mars." It's along the Martian equator, bright and warm enough to power the lander's solar array year-round.

The information InSight will gather about Mars applies to more than just the Red Planet. It will expand the understanding of rocky planets in general.

Photos: The best moments on Mars This artist's illustration shows the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter as it orbits Mars. The orbiter detected a layer of glowing green oxygen in Mars' atmosphere. Hide Caption 1 of 30 Photos: The best moments on Mars NASA's Curiosity Mars rover took a selfie shortly before completing its steepest climb yet on Mars up the Greenheugh Pediment, which tilted the rover 31 degrees. Hide Caption 2 of 30 Photos: The best moments on Mars NASA's Curiosity rover captured its highest-resolution panorama, including more than a thousand images and 1.8 billion pixels, of the Martian surface between November 24 and December 1, 2019. Hide Caption 3 of 30 Photos: The best moments on Mars The cloud in the center of the image is actually a dust tower that occurred in 2010 and was captured by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The blue and white clouds are water vapor. Hide Caption 4 of 30 Photos: The best moments on Mars This perspective of Mars' Valles Marineris hemisphere from July 9, 2013, is actually a mosaic comprising 102 Viking Orbiter images. At the center is the Valles Marineris canyon system, over 2,000 kilometers long and up to 8 kilometers deep. Hide Caption 5 of 30 Photos: The best moments on Mars NASA's Curiosity rover took this selfie on October 11, 2019, in the "Glen Etive" region. Hide Caption 6 of 30 Photos: The best moments on Mars The InSight lander was imaged from above by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Hide Caption 7 of 30 Photos: The best moments on Mars Is that cookies and cream on Mars? No, it's just polar dunes dusted with ice and sand. Hide Caption 8 of 30 Photos: The best moments on Mars The European Space Agency's Mars Express mission captured this image of the Korolev crater, more than 50 miles across and filled with water ice, near the north pole. Hide Caption 9 of 30 Photos: The best moments on Mars A recent photo taken by the Curiosity rover shows its current location, known as "Teal Ridge." The rover has been studying the clay-bearing unit in this region. Hide Caption 10 of 30 Photos: The best moments on Mars Cooled lava helped preserve a footprint of where dunes once moved across a southeastern region on Mars. But it also looks like the "Star Trek" symbol. Hide Caption 11 of 30 Photos: The best moments on Mars NASA's InSight lander used a camera on its robotic arm to capture this sunset on Mars on April 25. Hide Caption 12 of 30 Photos: The best moments on Mars InSight's seismometer recorded a "marsquake" for the first time on April 6, 2019. Hide Caption 13 of 30 Photos: The best moments on Mars A photo of a preserved river channel on Mars, taken by an orbiting satellite, with color overlaid to show different elevations. Blue is low and yellow is high. Hide Caption 14 of 30 Photos: The best moments on Mars This is NASA InSight's first selfie on Mars. It displays the lander's solar panels and deck. On top of the deck are its science instruments, weather sensor booms and UHF antenna. Hide Caption 15 of 30 Photos: The best moments on Mars Rovers can take selfies, too. This self-portrait of the Curiosity Mars rover shows the vehicle at the Quela drilling location in the Murray Buttes area on lower Mount Sharp. Hide Caption 16 of 30 Photos: The best moments on Mars Mars is far from a flat, barren landscape. Nili Patera is a region on Mars in which dunes and ripples are moving rapidly. HiRISE, onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, continues to monitor this area every couple of months to see changes over seasonal and annual time scales. Hide Caption 17 of 30 Photos: The best moments on Mars What are blueberries doing on Mars? These small, mineral hematite-rich concretions are near Fram Crater, visited by NASA's Opportunity rover in April 2004. The area shown is 1.2 inches across. The view comes from the microscopic imager on Opportunity's robotic arm, with color information added from the rover's panoramic camera. These minerals suggests that Mars had a watery past. Hide Caption 18 of 30 Photos: The best moments on Mars Mars is known to have planet-encircling dust storms. These 2001 images from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter show a dramatic change in the planet's appearance when haze raised by dust-storm activity in the south became globally distributed. Hide Caption 19 of 30 Photos: The best moments on Mars Curiosity took images on September 9, 2015, of Mount Sharp, a hematite-rich ridge, a plain full of clay minerals to create a composite and rounded buttes high in sulfate minerals. The changing mineralogy in these layers of Mount Sharp suggests a changing environment in early Mars, though all involve exposure to water billions of years ago. Hide Caption 20 of 30 Photos: The best moments on Mars HiRISE captured layered deposits and a bright ice cap at the Martian north pole. Hide Caption 21 of 30 Photos: The best moments on Mars This image, combining data from two instruments aboard NASA's Mars Global Surveyor, depicts an orbital view of the north polar region of Mars. The ice-rich polar cap is 621 miles across, and the dark bands in are deep troughs. To the right of center, a large canyon, Chasma Boreale, almost bisects the ice cap. Chasma Boreale is about the length of the United States' famous Grand Canyon and up to 1.2 miles deep. Hide Caption 22 of 30 Photos: The best moments on Mars Although Mars isn't geologically active like Earth, surface features have been heavily shaped by wind. Wind-carved features such as these, called yardangs, are common on the Red Planet. On the sand, the wind forms ripples and small dunes. In Mars' thin atmosphere, light is not scattered much, so the shadows cast by the yardangs are sharp and dark. Hide Caption 23 of 30 Photos: The best moments on Mars From its perch high on a ridge, Opportunity recorded this image of a Martian dust devil twisting through the valley below. The view looks back at the rover's tracks leading up the north-facing slope of Knudsen Ridge, which forms part of the southern edge of Marathon Valley. Hide Caption 24 of 30 Photos: The best moments on Mars HiRISE took this image of a kilometer-size crater in the southern hemisphere of Mars in June 2014. The crater shows frost on all its south-facing slopes in late winter as Mars is heading into spring. Hide Caption 25 of 30 Photos: The best moments on Mars The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter used its HiRISE camera to obtain this view of an area with unusual texture on the southern floor of Gale Crater. Hide Caption 26 of 30 Photos: The best moments on Mars A dramatic, fresh impact crater dominates this image taken by the HiRISE camera on November 19, 2013. The crater spans approximately 100 feet and is surrounded by a large, rayed blast zone. Because the terrain where the crater formed is dusty, the fresh crater appears blue in the enhanced color of the image, due to removal of the reddish dust in that area. Hide Caption 27 of 30 Photos: The best moments on Mars Opportunity used its panoramic camera to record this eastward horizon view on October 31, 2010. A portion of Endeavour Crater's eastern rim, nearly 19 miles in the distance, is visible over the Meridiani Planum. Hide Caption 28 of 30 Photos: The best moments on Mars In this artist's concept of NASA's InSight lander on Mars, layers of the planet's subsurface can be seen below and dust devils can be seen in the background. Hide Caption 29 of 30 Photos: The best moments on Mars The two largest quakes detected by NASA's InSight appear to have originated in a region of Mars called Cerberus Fossae. Scientists previously spotted signs of tectonic activity here, including landslides. This image was taken by the HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter. Hide Caption 30 of 30

"This has important implications beyond just these two neighbors [Mars and Earth], as we are currently discovering thousands of exoplanets around other stars, some of which may be quite similar to Earth or Mars in terms of size, location and composition," said Jack Singal, a physics professor at the University of Richmond and a former NASA astrophysics researcher.

What about MarCO?

The two suitcase-size spacecraft that followed InSight, MarCO, are the first cube satellites to fly into deep space. MarCO shared data about InSight when it entered the Martian atmosphere for the landing.

They were nicknamed EVE and WALL-E, for the robots from the 2008 Pixar film. And their mission is over. The MarCO team will collect data from each satellite to determine how much fuel they have left and a deeper look at how they performed.

"WALL-E and EVE performed just as we expected them to," MarCO chief engineer Andy Klesh at JPL said. "They were an excellent test of how CubeSats can serve as 'tag-alongs' on future missions, giving engineers up-to-the-minute feedback during a landing."

MarCO-B took this image of Mars from about 4,700 miles away.

The cube satellites bid farewell to InSight after it landed. MarCO-B took an image of Mars from 4,700 miles away during its flyby at 3:10 p.m. ET after helping establish communications with mission control.

"WALL-E sent some great postcards from Mars!" said Cody Colley of JPL, MarCO's mission manager. "It's been exciting to see the view from almost 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) above the surface."

There are no science instruments on MarCO. But during the flyby, MarCO-A transmitted signals through the edge of the Martian atmosphere. That atmosphere causes interference to change the signal when it's received on Earth, a way for scientists to detect how much atmosphere is present and even its composition.

"CubeSats have incredible potential to carry cameras and science instruments out to deep space," said John Baker, JPL's program manager for small spacecraft. "They'll never replace the more capable spacecraft NASA is best known for developing. But they're low-cost ride-alongs that can allow us to explore in new ways."

And for the team that worked on MarCO, the success of the mission is just the beginning.

"MarCO is mostly made up of early-career engineers and, for many, MarCO is their first experience out of college on a NASA mission," said Joel Krajewski of JPL, MarCO's project manager. "We are proud of their accomplishment. It's given them valuable experience on every facet of building, testing and operating a spacecraft in deep space."