Japan launches spacecraft to bring samples back from Phobos
The $578 million mission reached orbit on an H3 rocket, beginning a planned five-year expedition to land on Mars’s largest moon and return samples to Earth.
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The $578 million mission reached orbit on an H3 rocket, beginning a planned five-year expedition to land on Mars’s largest moon and return samples to Earth.
Japan’s robotic Martian Moons eXploration spacecraft, known as MMX, reached orbit aboard an H3 rocket on Monday, Ars Technica reported on October 23. The $578 million mission is beginning a planned five-year expedition to land on Phobos, Mars’s largest moon, and bring samples back to Earth.
MMX follows an earlier attempt to retrieve material from Phobos. Russia’s Phobos-Grunt mission failed soon after launch in 2011, before it could depart for Mars.
MMX lifted off from Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan at 3:41 pm EDT Monday, corresponding to 4:41 am Japan Standard Time Tuesday. The H3 rocket stood 63 metres (207 feet) tall.
The flight introduced an H3 configuration with four solid-fuel rocket boosters attached to its sides, main engines running at full throttle and an extended payload shroud—the protective cover around the spacecraft. Ars described these changes as meeting the demands of Japan’s heaviest interplanetary mission to date.
Reaching orbit completes the launch, not the sample-return mission. The planned five-year expedition still calls for MMX to travel to Mars’s moon, land on Phobos, collect samples and return them to Earth.
The MMX mission plans to return 10 grams of dust from Phobos in 2031 so scientists can test competing explanations for how Mars’s moons formed.
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