Japanese Exploration Mission To The Outer Side Of The Moon Of Mars

JAXA Satellite (Twitter @JAXA)

JAKARTA - Japan has a mission to land its spacecraft on Phobos, one of the moons on Mars. This space exploration mission has also received the green light from NASA.

If successful, the mission will mark the nation's first time exploring the lunar surface on Mars. Likewise with other potential opportunities for exploratory travel missions on Mars.

Launching The Verge, the Japanese Space Agency or JAXA has announced the Mars Exploration (MMX) project. This means that the team will immediately work on the hardware and software for the mission ahead of the planned launch in 2024.

It is known, this MMX mission will take off around 2024 and will arrive on Mars around 2025. This MMX exploration satellite and robot will spend three years surveying and making detailed maps of the surface of the two moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos.

Later the spacecraft, which is equipped with 11 explorers, will carry out measurement and sampling missions at Phobos. If all goes well, the mission will return to Earth with samples from Phobos in 2029.

The MMX mission is now in the development phase! 🛰✨This important transition assessed criteria such as the science goals 🧪, mission impact 🌏 and risk factors💥. Here we look at the highlights from our study: https://t.co/EgGZxfhURW pic.twitter.com/ugqPaoNrTM

- Martian Moons @JAXA (@mmx_jaxa_en) February 20, 2020

For your information, Phobos is an attractive target for scientists and astronauts. Researchers are still not sure whether Phobos and Deimos are asteriods captured by Martian gravity, or satellites formed after the big bang.

This new mission can certainly help answer those statements. Not a few are interested in Phobos and consider it a stepping stone for future human missions to Mars.

"Humans can realistically scour the surface of only a few objects to the surface of Phobos and Deimos that are on that list. Their position orbiting Mars could make them a prime target for humans to visit first, before reaching the surface of the Red Planet. But it will only be. maybe after knowing the results of the MMX mission, "said Jim Green, a chief scientist at NASA.

For information, this project will also be assisted by NASA which contributes two tools for the MMX mission. The tools include elemental analysis on the lunar surface and pneumatic sampling devices. In fact, NASA researchers have been discussing missions to Phobos for years, including missions to carry humans.

Previously, this mission in 1988 was carried out by the Soviet spacecraft Phobos 2, which sent explorers and landers to the lunar surface. Unfortunately, the computers on the aircraft did not function properly prior to the mission. Another, the Russian Phobos-Grunt mission launched in 2011 also failed to pass through Earth orbit.