{"id":888804,"date":"2026-10-20T12:10:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T12:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/888804\/"},"modified":"2026-10-20T12:10:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T12:10:10","slug":"japan-launches-mission-to-bring-home-a-piece-of-the-martian-moon-phobos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/888804\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan launches mission to bring home a piece of the Martian moon Phobos"},"content":{"rendered":"

Japan launched a $578 million mission Monday on a five-year expedition to land on the largest moon of Mars and retrieve samples for return to Earth, a daring international project that could yield new insights into the formation of the Solar System.<\/p>\n

The robotic Martian Moons eXploration mission, known as MMX, lifted off at 3:41 pm EDT Monday (4:41 am Japan Standard Time Tuesday) from Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan.<\/p>\n

The MMX spacecraft rode into orbit atop a 207-foot-tall (63-meter) H3 rocket, Japan\u2019s flagship launch vehicle. The rocket assigned to MMX debuted a new souped-up configuration with four strap-on solid rocket boosters, full-throttle main engines, and an extended payload shroud to accommodate the demands of Japan\u2019s heaviest and most ambitious interplanetary mission to date.<\/p>\n

The rocket\u2019s upper stage accelerated the MMX spacecraft to a top speed of more than 24,000 mph, fast enough to break free of Earth\u2019s gravitational pull for the 10-month voyage to Mars. The nearly 9,900-pound (4.5-metric ton) spacecraft\u2014two-thirds of its mass comprised of propellant\u2014separated from the H3 rocket about 71 minutes after liftoff.<\/p>\n


\n \"\"
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

A Japanese H3 rocket lifts off from Tanegashima Space Center, Japan, with the MMX mission.<\/p>\n

\n Credit:
\n JAXA\n <\/p>\n

\n A Japanese H3 rocket lifts off from Tanegashima Space Center, Japan, with the MMX mission.<\/p>\n

Credit:<\/p>\n

JAXA<\/p>\n

Hiroshi Yamakawa, president of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), declared the launch a success. \u201cA long journey of five years has just started,\u201d Yamakawa said.<\/p>\n

MMX established contact with ground controllers, unfurled its solar panels, and was in a \u201cvery stable condition\u201d soon after separating from the H3 rocket, according to Yasuhiro Kawakatsu, the mission\u2019s project manager at JAXA. \u201cSo far, so good.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe MMX [mission] we launched today is a challenging mission aiming for the world\u2019s first sample return from the Martian moons,\u201d said Yoshihiro Seki, Japan\u2019s science minister. \u201cWe hope that the results obtained through this mission will contribute to the development of our nation\u2019s space science and exploration technology.\u201d<\/p>\n

Building on a legacy<\/p>\n

The mission to the Martian moons builds on Japan\u2019s success in leading the Hayabusa and Hayabusa 2 missions<\/a>, the world\u2019s first two spacecraft to bring back pristine specimens from asteroids. Scientists believe Phobos could itself be an asteroid that was captured into orbit around Mars billions of years ago. One of MMX\u2019s science goals is finding out if that theory is correct.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Japan launched a $578 million mission Monday on a five-year expedition to land on the largest moon of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":888805,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[79],"class_list":["post-888804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=888804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888804\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/888805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=888804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=888804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=888804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}