The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has revealed a plan to reach and explore Mars' moons by 2024. Its "Martian Moons Exploration" mission involves sending robotic spacecraft to Phobos and Deimos. Tools on-board the spacecraft will investigate the moons.
Japan wants to take samples from both and bring them back to Earth for further analysis. One of JAXA's goals is to figure out the origins of Phobos and Deimos. It's unknown if they're captured asteroids or if they arose from fragments ejected from Mars following impacts.
MMX will land on Phobos and acquire samples of at least 10 grams from more than 2cm below the surface. Analysis of samples returned to Earth will clarify the nature of the asteroid that led to the formation of the moon. Deimos observations will be limited to flyby imaging, but combined with ground data to be obtained for Phobos, we should be able to constrain its origin in a substantial manner.- Masaki Fujimoto, JAXA
It also wants to investigate the conditions on and around the moons.
0 Comments