Mars: Mission Blasts Off to Grab A Bit of Its Moon
A spacecraft has just launched from Japan headed for Mars' moon Phobos, where it will attempt to pick up some moon dust and bring it back to Earth.
There are only three moons in the inner Solar System: our own Moon, and two around Mars, which are called Phobos and Deimos. Both of them are tiny - Phobos is about 20km (12 miles) across and Deimos is about 10km (six miles) across. They are also irregularly shaped, looking a bit like space potatoes. The Russians have tried and failed to get to Phobos, but if this new mission is successful, it will become the first time a sample has been returned from Mars or its moons to be analysed in laboratories here on Earth. But it is going to take a while. The spacecraft from Jaxa, the Japanese space agency, is scheduled to arrive at Phobos in August 2027.
It is hoped that the Mars Moons Exploration (MMX) mission, which is led by the Japanese Space Agency, will solve the mystery of how Mars's moons formed. Prof Sara Russell, from London's Natural History Museum, who is the MMX mission's deputy for sample analysis, said: "There hasn't yet been a successful mission to go to Phobos and bring a bit back to Earth. I think this is an incredibly ambitious and fun mission."
The MMX spacecraft will study Deimos as it arrives in the Mars neighbourhood, and then will focus on Phobos. It plans to set down a small rover to explore the terrain, though this will be no easy feat. "The moon itself doesn't have very much of its own gravity," Sara Russell explained. "But it's next to an enormous planet that's got a much higher gravity, and that makes it much harder to get a rover onto the surface."
The rover will scout out a landing site so that the MMX spacecraft itself can later touch down on Phobos. Once on the surface, it will deploy a robotic arm and two samplers to grab some moon dust. This material will be packed into a small capsule that will return to Earth in 2031, landing in the Woomera desert of South Australia. So, keep your fingers crossed.
