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publication date:
23 Aug 2021 17:31 GMT
Date of update: 23 Aug 2021 19:00 GMT
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency has revealed plans to send a spacecraft to recover soil samples from the Martian moon Phobos, with the aim of bringing them back to Earth before the end of this decade, in the hope of find evidence of the origin of the planet and possible traces of ancient life.
The Japanese agency has confirmed that the Phobos soil sample will be part of a larger mission to explore the moon of Mars, which is expected to launch in 2024 and will include a spacecraft orbiting the moon Deimos before to land on the biggest moon Phobos to collect a sample of rocks and earth.
The Japanese agency said the £ 322million project would be the first to bring a sample of a moon to orbit another planet and could return to Earth as soon as possible by 2029.
If the mission goes as planned, the Japanese MMX probe will land on Mars’ largest moon, Phobos, to collect 10 grams (0.35 ounces) of soil samples and send them back to Earth.
It should be noted that this mission comes two years before NASA’s Perseverance rover lands in the crater of the Martian volcano, where it will collect 31 samples that will be returned to Earth with the help of the European Space Agency in early 2031. .
For its part, the Japanese Space Agency has confirmed that this mission will put Japan ahead of the United States and China by bringing samples from Mars, to help it in its training, and believes that this mission will provide all the necessary data. to resolve this problem. mystery and if traces of ancient life are hidden inside the ground.
To achieve this goal, it will send a spacecraft into Mars space and orbit Mars, and while there it will photograph and collect the moons, before moving to Phobos, where it will land, collect samples, take off and return to Earth with those samples.
Japanese scientists have confirmed that when the team lands on the surface of Phobos, the team will use the drilling system to extract samples which will then be sent back to Earth for analysis.
They added that not only will they collect and return samples, but the agency also plans to conduct a number of remote sensing operations of Mars and its moons.
Last December, the Japanese space agency’s probe, Hayabusa 2, returned more than 5 grams (0.19 ounces) of soil from asteroid Ryugu, located more than 300 million kilometers (190 million miles) away. from Earth, on its first successful return. sample in the world.
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