Phobos (moon) was proposed to place an orbiter in Mars orbit by 2021 to study Phobos and Deimos through a series of close flybys. The mission is called Phobos And Deimos & Mars Environment (PADME). Two other Phobos missions that were proposed for the Discovery 13 selection included a mission called "Merlin", which would flyby Deimos but actually orbit and land on Phobos, and another one is "Pandora" which would orbit both Deimos and Phobos. The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) unveiled in 9 June 2015 the Martian Moons Exploration (MMX), a sample return mission targeting Phobos. MMX will land and collect
Mars sample-return mission gained from the "Hayabusa 2" and SLIM missions. Of the two moons, Phobos's orbit is closer to Mars and its surface may have adhered particles blasted from the red planet; thus the Phobos samples collected by MMX may contain material originating from Mars itself. Japan has also shown interest in participating in an international Mars sample-return mission. Since it is currently unknown whether life forms exist on Mars, the mission could potentially transfer viable organisms resulting in back contamination—the introduction of extraterrestrial organisms into Earth's biosphere. The scientific consensus is that the potential for large-scale effects, either through pathogenesis or