Deep Space Exploration

According to The Guardian, NHK and the Associated Press, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) will launch the Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission on Tuesday, October 20 from the Tanegashima Space Center. MMX aims to collect at least 10 grams of material from Phobos, Mars’ largest moon, and bring the samples back to Earth within five years. This is the first attempt in history to retrieve samples from a Martian moon, and the probe will also make the first-ever close flyby of the smaller Deimos. The mission is led by Japan with instrument and deep-space communications support from the European Space Agency and NASA, and is widely seen as the next step in Japan’s deep-space sampling capability after Hayabusa2.

NASA has extended the Roman Space Telescope’s expected mission lifetime from 10 to 22 years—nearly double the original projection—through a single ultra-precise engine burn. The breakthrough means humanity will have far more time to use it for dark-energy research, exoplanet detection, and frontier cosmology.