MMX (Martian Moons eXploration) is a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) mission that aims to be the first to bring back samples from Phobos, the larger of Mars’s two small moons. Launching on Japan’s H3 rocket, the spacecraft is expected to reach the Mars region around August 2027, spend about three years studying Phobos and collecting at least 10 grams of soil, fly by the other moon, Deimos, and return the samples to Earth in 2031, with the capsule expected to land in Australia.
The roughly 5-ton spacecraft carries 13 instruments, including the French-German rover Idefix and a NASA sampling device. Scientists hope the samples will settle whether Phobos and Deimos formed from debris after a large impact on Mars or are captured asteroids; JAXA expects about 0.1% of the collected material to come from Mars itself.
Image: Phobos imaged by the HiRISE camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.