Japan has a very adept space agency in terms of exploration. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, has engineered the launches of the Hayabusa missions to near-Earth asteroids and the Akatsuki space probe to Venus. Although the Hayabusa2 spacecraft is the only mission so far to occur without a hiccup, there is much to learn from these mistakes, and JAXA is now readying itself to launch a new mission to Mars’ moons, Phobos and Deimos.
JAXA is currently preparing its Martian Moons Exploration (MMX) mission, with a plan to launch towards Phobos and Deimos in 2024, gain scientific data from both objects upon arrival in 2025, collect a sample of Phobos in the process and finish the mission by returning the sample to Earth by 2029. Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, attempted the same feat in 2011 with the Fobos-Grunt mission. However, untimely rocket burns meant it did not reach a trajectory toward Mars, but instead became stranded in low-Earth orbit, ending with a controlled re-entry into the Pacific Ocean.
Denne historien er fra Issue 111-utgaven av All About Space.
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Denne historien er fra Issue 111-utgaven av All About Space.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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MYSTERIES OF THE UNI WHERE ARE ALL THE SPIRAL GALAXIES?
There are far fewer spiral galaxies than elliptical ones in the Supergalactic Plane, and scientists are keen to discover why
ZOMBIE STARS
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HOW TO BEAT LIGHT POLLUTION
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These beautiful stellar groupings are spattered across the cosmos
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Having served as both the first female pilot and first female commander of NASA's Space Shuttle, Collins boosted the involvement of women in space exploration to a whole new level
MARS LEAKS FASTER WHEN IT'S CLOSER TO THE SUN
The Red Planet has lost enough water to space to form a global ocean hundreds of kilometres deep
FUTURE TECH KANKOH-MARU
This ambitious reusable spacecraft will be capable of taking 50 people to and from orbit
THE FINAL FRONTIER
Beyond the reach of the Sun is a fascinating region of the cosmos that were only just beginning to explore
A long-lost moon could explain Mars' weird shape and extreme terrain
A long-lost moon could explain why Mars is so different from the other rocky planets in the Solar System. Today Mars has two tiny moons.
A sprinkling of cosmic dust may have helped kick-start life on Earth
Cosmic dust may have helped kick-start life on Earth. New findings challenge a widely held assumption that this wasn't a plausible explanation.
