A new mission from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is set to address long-standing mysteries regarding Mars and its two moons. Dubbed MMX, short for “Martian Moons eXploration,” the spacecraft intends to harvest at least 10 grams of material from Phobos. If the mission succeeds, it will mark the first time rocks from a Martian moon have been transported back to Earth.<\/p>\n
The journey is extensive. The probe is scheduled to spend roughly one year traveling to Mars, where it will conduct operations for three years before beginning its return voyage. Assuming no complications, the samples are expected to reach Earth in 2031.<\/p>\n
Central to the mission is determining the birth of Phobos and its smaller sibling, Deimos. Scientists are weighing two primary theories: that the moons formed from debris ejected by a colossal impact on Mars, or that they are captured asteroids from the outer solar system. While the moons’ dark, carbon-rich surfaces resemble asteroids, their nearly circular equatorial orbits align more closely with the giant impact hypothesis. Analyzing Phobos samples alongside existing Martian surface data could finally settle the debate.<\/p>\n
Executing this task presents significant engineering hurdles. The spacecraft will launch with a total mass of 4,480 kilograms, more than half of which is fuel allocated for the outbound trip, orbital exploration, and return leg. After reaching Mars, MMX will discard its outbound module and, following a flyby of Deimos, jettison the exploration module as well.<\/p>\n
The remaining probe, built by Mitsubishi Electric, must navigate the delicate task of landing on Phobos, which has a radius of only 11 kilometers. Standard lunar landing techniques are unsuitable because Phobos’ gravity is approximately 300 times weaker than Earth’s moon. Although its gravity is about 50 times stronger than that of asteroid Ryugu\u2014where JAXA previously landed\u2014the increased pull makes prolonged hovering, a common strategy for small bodies, impractical due to fuel constraints.<\/p>\n
To manage these challenges, MMX relies on high-precision autonomous navigation. With radio signal delays of up to 20 minutes between Earth and the spacecraft, the probe must independently execute its descent, landing, and takeoff sequences. During approach, it will match real-time terrain data against topographical maps of Phobos’ craters to adjust its trajectory. Once below 300 meters, the system will identify elevation changes and label hazardous zones, allowing it to alter its landing site or abort the touchdown.<\/p>\n
Before the main spacecraft lands, a small rover named IDEFIX\u2014developed jointly by French and German space agencies\u2014will be deployed to scout the area. Expected to operate for about 100 days, the rover will gather preliminary data to ensure a safer landing for the primary mission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
JAXA’s MMX probe aims to collect Phobos soil for Earth return, potentially resolving the origin of Mars’ moons in a 2031 timeline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1164,1165,1167,1166,162,573,116],"class_list":["post-482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science","tag-jaxa","tag-mars","tag-mmx","tag-phobos","tag-science","tag-space","tag-tech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}