NASA to Detail Its Role in JAXA's MMX Mission

NASA announced a media teleconference for Thursday, Oct. 15, to outline the agency's contributions to JAXA's Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission.

The spacecraft is set to launch from the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan no earlier than Oct. 19. It is scheduled to reach Mars in August 2027.

Once there, the mission will survey the two small moons, Phobos and Deimos. The plan calls for the spacecraft to collect a surface sample from Phobos no earlier than December 2028 and deliver it to Earth by 2031.

NASA provided three main pieces of support for the mission: the MEGANE gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer (built by Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory), the spacecraft's pneumatic surface sampler (developed by Honeybee Robotics, a Blue Origin company), and communications and navigation through the Deep Space Network. The agency is also funding U.S. scientists on the MMX science team. The contributions were funded by NASA's Discovery Program.

The teleconference audio streams on the agency's website. Media who want to ask questions by phone need to RSVP by 2 p.m. EDT on Oct. 15.

A pre-launch briefing covers what the hardware is designed to do. The spectrometer and the sampler still have years of travel and orbital insertion at Mars ahead. Their performance will be measured on Phobos, not in the briefing room.

• Deimos
• JAXA
• Mars missions
• MMX
• NASA
• Phobos