Human mission to Mars Mars. Many Mars mission concepts propose precursor missions to the moons of Mars, for example a sample return mission to the Mars moon Phobos – not quite Mars, but perhaps a convenient stepping stone to an eventual Martian surface mission. Lockheed Martin, as part of their "Stepping stones to Mars" project, called the "Red Rocks Project", proposed to explore Mars robotically from Deimos. Use of fuel produced from water resources on Phobos or Deimos has also been proposed. An uncrewed Mars sample return mission (MSR) has sometimes been considered to be an essential precursor to crewed missions to Mars' surface
Phobos (moon) presence of voids and indicate that it is not a solid chunk of rock but a porous body. The porosity of Phobos was calculated to be 30% ± 5%, or a quarter to a third being empty. Phobos has been photographed in close-up by several spacecraft whose primary mission has been to photograph Mars. The first was "Mariner 7" in 1969, followed by "Viking 1" in 1977, "Mars Global Surveyor" in 1998 and 2003, "Mars Express" in 2004, 2008, and 2010, and "Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter" in 2007 and 2008. On August 25, 2005, the "Spirit" rover, with an excess of