Science and Exploration

Japan’s Mission to the Red Planet – Probing the Mysterious Moons of Mars

By Leonard David

SpaceRef

September 12, 2023

Filed under Deimos, JAXA, MMX, Phobos

Japan’s Mission to the Red Planet – Probing the Mysterious Moons of Mars — JAXA’s ambitious Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) spacecraft searching for clues about the origin of the Martian moons Phobos and Deimos.

Image credit: JAXA.

It would seem odd that a spacecraft could seek the origin of fear and terror.

But that is the objective of Japan’s upcoming Martian Moons eXploration mission, a bold undertaking set to survey two oddballs circling Mars – the moons Phobos (fear) and Deimos (panic), name tags drawn from Greek mythology.

Leonard David

Leonard is author of Moon Rush: The New Space Race, Mars – Our Future on the Red Planet, and co-authored with Apollo 11’s Buzz Aldrin of Mission to Mars – My Vision for Space Exploration - all published by the National Geographic Society.