Japan will send a mission to the satellite of Mars

Japan is the fourth space power in the worldafter the USA, Russia and China. Despite the fact that the country of the rising sun currently specializes mainly in launches of orbiting satellites, in the near future Japan may make a real breakthrough in the field of aerospace projects. So, the Japanese space agency JAXA officially announced that it plans to create a new mission to Mars, and more precisely, to one of the two Martian satellites - Phobos. If the ambitious plan of the Japanese engineers works, mankind may have the first spacecraft in history, which can not only reach the Martian system, but also return back to Earth.

Phobos and Deimos - two asteroid satellites of the red planet

New missions to Mars

Phobos is one of two Martian satellites, aboutthe origin of which in the scientific community since the official discovery of this moon and is still being fiercely debated. In order to shed light on the mystery of the origin of satellites, a Japanese mission called the Marsian Moons Exploration mission (MMX) plans to go on its space journey as early as 2024. If during the execution of the program the device does not encounter unforeseen difficulties, JAXA expects that the mission will be able to exist on Phobos for more than three years. During this time, the device will be able to take samples of local soil, create a map of the satellite’s surface and even indicate the reason for the unusual appearance of this small Martian moon, the futurism.com portal reports.

See also: Martian colonists will use a laser to communicate with the Earth

Japanese mission to Mars will help to better study the satellites of the planet

For a unique scientific missionthe spacecraft will be equipped with 11 tools that will allow the device to collect a 10-gram soil sample and drill 2 centimeters below the satellite’s surface. An analysis of even such a small amount of material can help scientists understand how exactly both Martian moons were formed. Despite the fact that the shape of Phobos and Deimos is very similar to the asteroid, the satellites can be pieces of Mars itself, which as a result of a catastrophe could lose some of its part.

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Besides its main purpose, JapaneseThe program will also focus on the study of Martian water resources, the occurrence of which occurred during the so-called “phase of the earth’s environment”. Once upon a time, Mars possessed a significant amount of liquid water, but as a result of still unknown reasons, almost all Martian water literally evaporated into space in a very short time, and its remnants went underground. By exploring the composition of the two satellites of the planet, scientists hope to better understand the evolution of Mars and the reasons that contributed to the transformation of the once warm world into an absolutely lifeless desert.

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Be that as it may, the above mission is fromthe Japanese company JAXA will not be the first evidence that the Japanese are actively developing the aerospace industry. So, we already wrote that last year, the spacecraft Hayabusa 2 was able to successfully land on a tiny distant asteroid called Ryugu. After collecting particles of the asteroid’s soil, the mission headed for Earth, and is expected to arrive home in December 2020.