Japan Is Launching a Mission to Mars Moons and Plans to Bring Samples Home
NASA contributed to this first-of-its-kind mission that may help us understand how our solar system formed.
Japan is set to launch an ambitious Mars mission on Monday from the Tanegashima Space Center. Led by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) with support from NASA, the Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission aims to become the first to successfully journey to Mars and return. The spacecraft will focus on studying the Martian moons Deimos and Phobos, with a goal to bring samples from Phobos' surface back to Earth.
NASA's involvement includes the Mars-moon Exploration with Gamma rays and Neutrons (Megane) spectrograph instrument, as well as the pneumatic sampler (p-sampler) technology demonstration for collecting the Phobos sample. The mission will also test technologies that could aid human exploration of Mars. JAXA anticipates the MMX spacecraft arriving at Mars in August 2027, departing Earth in November 2030, and returning to Earth in July 2031.
Despite other missions, such as China's Tianwen-3 and NASA's Osiris-Rex, the MMX mission could provide crucial insights into the early formation of our solar system and the development of celestial bodies like Earth and Mars.
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