Lander (spacecraft) 2012. Planned for 2018, NASA's Mars Astrobiology Explorer-Cacher lander mission was cancelled due to budget cuts. Exploration of Mars including the use of landers continues to this day. Amongst them, Russia has planned a Mars sample return mission Mars-Grunt for near 2026, and China for near 2030. While several flybys conducted by Mars orbiting probes have provided images and other data about the Martian moons Phobos and Deimos, only few of them intended to land on the surface of these satellites. Two probes under the Soviet Phobos program were successfully launched in 1988, but in 1989 the intended landings on
Transit of Phobos from Mars the autumnal equinox and the vernal equinox, while farther from the equator they happen closer to the winter solstice. Observers at high latitudes (but less than 70.4°) will see a noticeably smaller angular diameter for Phobos because they are considerably farther away from it than observers at Mars's equator. As a result, transits of Phobos for such observers will cover less of the Sun's disk. Because it orbits so close to Mars, Phobos cannot be seen north of 70.4°N or south of 70.4°S; observers at such latitudes will obviously not see transits, either. Mars Rover "Opportunity" rover photographed transits of