Japan’s MMX mission will land on Phobos, one of Mars’s moons, to collect samples and return them to Earth in 2031, aiming to resolve the mystery of Phobos’s origin and potentially find evidence of past life on Mars.
Why it matters. The mission could provide insights into Mars’s past and the potential for life, making it a significant scientific endeavor.
they are misshapen objects just 22 kilometers and 12 kilometers across, respectively.
a hardy bacterium capable of withstanding dehydration and intense radiation
In about 100 million years, gravitational tides will tear Phobos apart like warm bread, transforming it into a dusty ring system.
Before MMX lands, it will swoop close to the moon, pop open a hatch, and drop off the 25-kilogram rover, developed by JAXA’s French and German partners.
With a push from its thrusters, a return module will begin the yearlong odyssey home.
But NASA’s ambitious $11 billion plan to return those samples ran into technical and financial troubles.
In 2030, it will split apart, leaving behind the landing legs and instruments on its exploration module.
its diminutive partner, Deimos (“dread”)
Phobos (ancient Greek for “fear”), one of the two small, battered moons of Mars
the moon orbits just 6000 kilometers or so above the planet’s surface
Kris Zacny, vice president of exploration systems at Honeybee Robotics, which built one of MMX’s sample extractors.
NASA’s Perseverance rover has been collecting and caching painstakingly selected rock samples for eventual return to Earth.
a 4.6-billion-year-old relic as old as Earth itself
That same year, the MMX team will be in the Australian outback, waiting for a messenger from a more distant moon.
Those precious few grams of material could resolve the mystery of Phobos’s origin—and, potentially, that of its diminutive partner, Deimos (“dread”). Scientist…
But Japan’s $350 million Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission is going to do something even more audacious: Fly to Phobos (ancient Greek for “fear”), one of…
