TANEGASHIMA: Japan’s newly launched robotic mission to Mars may seem like a lot of effort to bring back less than an ounce of moon dust, but the journey could provide useful information, two U.S. authorities on space tell “Jesse Weber Live.”
An H3 rocket carried the five-year Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) spacecraft from Japan’s Tanegashima Space Centre. Scientists hope the samples will help explain how Mars’s two moons formed.
Researchers still do not know whether Mars captured Phobos and Deimos as asteroids or whether debris from an ancient collision formed them. MMX will investigate both moons, focusing its sample collection on Phobos, the larger of the pair.
JAXA expects the spacecraft to reach Mars in August 2027. It will study Phobos from close orbit before deploying IDEFIX, a 25-kilogram rover.
French and German space agencies helped develop the rover, which will explore the surface and scout potential sampling sites.
Scientists plan to collect material in two ways. One device will drill below the surface, while another will use nitrogen gas to gather loose dust.
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NASA is contributing a gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer to examine the moon’s elemental composition. Planetary scientist David Lawrence of Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory will oversee that instrument. “We don’t know how these moons came to be,” Lawrence said.
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Researchers also hope Phobos may hold fragments of ancient Martian material that impacts threw into space. If scientists find those particles, they could offer clues about Mars’s earlier environment and the history of the solar system.
Former NASA astronaut Terry Hart, director of Lehigh University’s aerospace programme, said space missions often produce discoveries beyond their original objectives.
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Scientists will compare measurements from the spacecraft’s instruments with the samples they collect to investigate the competing explanations for the moons’ origins.
After completing its observations and sampling operations, MMX plans to examine Deimos before leaving the Martian system. JAXA aims to return the collected material to Earth in 2031.
