As stated in Chapter 8, the proper design and implementation of planetary protection measures will ultimately be critical to the overall success of martian sample-return missions. Mission success can ...

Japan has sent a spacecraft toward Mars on a mission that could answer a ...

NASA has set a goal to return rock and soil samples from the surface of Mars in the 2030s. The mission would represent the first time scientific samples from another planet have been returned to Earth ...

AM on October 20, 2026, JAXA launched the H3 Launch Vehicle Flight 10 from the Tanegashima Space Center, successfully placing the Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) spacecraft into its planned orbit. The ...

For several years now the biggest space agencies in the Western world have been struggling to get going the Mars Sample Return mission, perhaps the most ambitious robotic space mission ever undertaken ...

China is closing the spaceflight technology gap with the U.S. For the past decade it has been dedicating significant resources and pooling expertise to establish itself as a dominant player in space ...

A JAXA-led, five-agency mission has launched to study Mars moons and collect Phobos samples for return to Earth in 2031.

Japan Mars moon mission 2026: JAXA's MMX spacecraft lifts off October 19 on Japan's first-ever attempt to collect soil from Phobos, a Mars moon no probe has ever landed on. Dual samplers and ...