🚀 Japan aims to bring the first piece of Phobos home

JAXA’s Martian Moons eXploration spacecraft is scheduled to launch from Tanegashima on 19 or 20 October 2026 aboard an H3 rocket. If the plan holds, it will return at least 10 grams of Phobos soil to Earth in 2031—the first samples from a Martian moon.

After reaching Mars about a year later, the probe will linger near the cratered, 22-kilometer moon, map it, then try one or two landings. A corer and a gas-powered collector will gather grains; a 25-kilogram rover named IDEFIX, which would weigh about 15 grams on Phobos, is meant to work on the surface for up to 100 days.

Laboratory tests of those grains are expected to show whether Phobos is a captured asteroid, leftover debris from a giant impact on Mars, or a mix of both.

@futurism🧬