This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Japanese scientists are readying a mission to Mars' moons to retrieve samples that could help unlock the origins of the solar system and life on Earth, in what aims to be the first round trip to the Martian region. The unmanned Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) probe, a collaboration with U.S. and European space agencies as well as numerous universities and tech companies, could also help lay the groundwork for eventual human exploration.
The flagship H3 rocket carrying the MMX is set to blast off from the Tanegashima Space Center Tuesday at 4:41 a.m. (1941 GMT Monday), according to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). "Being able to be involved in such a grand mission is incredibly exciting," Makoto Arita, project manager of JAXA's H3 rocket team, told reporters two days before the launch. The spacecraft will arrive near Mars around August next year, where it will orbit one of its moons, Phobos, before landing and collecting at least 10 grams (0.35 ounces) of material from the surface during three years of operating within the Martian sphere.
A rover dubbed IDEFIX—the French name for the comic hero Asterix's dog—will first conduct surface observations aimed at ensuring a safe landing. "The sampling (from) Phobos is of course the world's first, but it means... this is the first round trip to the Martian system," MMX's project manager Yasuhiro Kawakatsu told AFP. JAXA said the mission will also explore the possibility of using Phobos as a "natural space station" by establishing the requirements for a round trip to Mars—something "essential for crewed Mars exploration." It will also observe the Red Planet's moon Deimos, although it will not land on it, before returning to Earth.
JAXA hopes the mission will reveal how Mars and its two moons formed, a key piece of knowledge in working out how the solar system was born. One theory for the origin of the Martian moons—the "giant impact" hypothesis—is that they formed after a celestial body collided with Mars. The "capture" hypothesis, meanwhile, postulates that the moons are asteroids captured by Mars' gravity.
Determining which theory is correct will help reveal "how a habitable environment for life might have arisen on the terrestrial planets," JAXA said, referring to the four rocky worlds closest to the sun—Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. "MMX will shed light on the transport mechanisms that delivered water, volatiles and organic compounds from the outer solar system to the inner rocky planet region—processes that may have played a key role in making these worlds habitable," said Patrick Michel, a French astrophysicist working on IDEFIX. "If Phobos and Deimos are indeed remnants of these early delivery systems, they may hold clues to the origins of life itself, or, to be more correct, to the transport of the materials that were key to the emergence of life on rocky planets," he told AFP.
Discover the latest in science, tech, and space with over 100,000 subscribers who rely on Phys.org for daily insights. d research that matter—daily or weekly. MMX is a collaboration with France's National Centre for Space Studies (CNES), the German Aerospace Center (DLR), NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and about 20 universities and tech companies. The development of the spacecraft's landing legs was particularly difficult, as gravity on Phobos is extremely weak, JAXA scientists say.
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