Japan sent a probe toward the moons of Mars from Tanegashima

Japan launched a spacecraft toward the moons of Mars before dawn on October 20, 2026. The Japan Times reported that an H3 rocket, on its tenth flight, lifted off from Tanegashima Space Center at 4:41 a.m. Japan time. People watched from the town of Minamitane. About 71 minutes later the MMX probe had separated and was on a trajectory toward Mars. The paper said it was in orbit toward Mars at 5:52 a.m.

MMX, short for Martian Moons eXploration, was developed by JAXA with Mitsubishi Electric. The Japan Times put the mission cost at about 55.3 billion yen. It is the first H3 flight sent beyond Earth orbit. The probe is expected near Mars in August 2027. The plan calls for two landing attempts on Phobos in 2029, to collect at least 10 grams of material from at least 2 centimetres down. A small rover, Idefix, built by CNES and the German space agency DLR, is aboard. A sample capsule is planned to land in Australia in July 2031.

The samples are not back. The launch does not answer whether Phobos is a captured asteroid or a piece of Mars. It puts a spacecraft on the way to go and look.