Japan Launches Mission to Collect Martian Moon Samples

Japan is launching a spacecraft on a five-year mission to Phobos, one of Mars’s moons, to collect samples and investigate the origins of life and the formation of the moons. The mission, involving international collaboration, aims to provide data for future manned missions to Mars.

What happened

• Japan’s Jaxa is launching the Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) spacecraft on Tuesday aboard the H3 rocket.
• The mission’s goal is to collect samples from Phobos, one of Mars’s two small moons, to study its formation and potential connection to the origins of life.
• Yasuhiro Kawakatsu, project manager for MMX, stated that the samples will provide useful data.
• The spacecraft will take approximately five years to reach Phobos and will carry 13 instruments, including a French-German rover, a NASA sampling device, and a European Space Agency communication device.
• The mission will involve landing the rover on Phobos, collecting soil samples from multiple locations, and returning the samples to Earth in 2031.
• The MMX spacecraft will utilize a coring method and a pressurised gas method to collect samples, aiming to obtain at least 10g of soil.
• The landing module is equipped with four-legged landing gear with shock absorption features to minimize bouncing.

Original reporting

• Guardian: Japan to launch world-first mission to collect samples from Martian moon
  2026-10-18T00:00:00+00:00
• South China Morning Post: Japan readies Martian moon mission to uncover origins of life
  2026-10-18T10:35:21+00:00