WorldPosted at: Oct 20 2026 10:03PM


Japan launches historic space mission to retrieve Mars' Phobos moon samples

Tokyo, Oct 20 (UNI) Japan has launched a mission aimed at becoming the first to land on one of Mars' moons and return samples from its surface to Earth.
An H3 rocket carrying the Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) spacecraft lifted off from Tanegashima Space Center on Monday, according to a live broadcast by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).
The mission aims to return at least 10 grams of material from Phobos by 2031, with the first landing operation planned in around two years.
No spacecraft has successfully landed on either Phobos or Deimos, Mars' smaller moon. The Soviet union launched two probes in 1988, but neither completed its mission. Phobos 1 was lost after an erroneous command disabled its attitude-control system, while Phobos 2 operated for nearly two months before a communications failure prevented it from deploying two landers.
Russia's subsequent Fobos-Grunt sample-return mission also failed in 2011 after a propulsion malfunction left the spacecraft stranded in Earth's orbit.
JAXA expects MMX to reach Mars in August or September 2027 and begin observations before deploying a rover in late 2028 or early 2029. The 25kg French-German rover, named IDEFIX, will be released onto Phobos to study its surface for around 100 days. The main spacecraft will then attempt two landings to collect samples before flying past Deimos in 2030 and beginning its return journey to Earth.
Landing on Phobos presents a significant technical challenge. The moon measures just 27km across at its longest point, and its weak gravity makes conventional close-orbit operations difficult. MMX will instead synchronise its orbit around Mars with that of Phobos, effectively operating as a "quasi-satellite".
Scientists hope the samples will help determine whether Phobos formed from debris ejected into orbit by a massive impact on Mars or is an asteroid captured by the planet's gravity.
Several previous missions have collected and analysed Martian soil and rock on the planet's surface. NASA's Perseverance rover has also stored samples for a potential return to Earth, but a retrieval mission planned jointly with the European Space Agency lost its funding earlier this year.
China's Tianwen-3 mission could return samples collected directly from Mars as early as 2031.
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