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
Exploration of Mars a focus on Phobos. Phobos 1 lost contact on the way to Mars. Phobos 2, while successfully photographing Mars and Phobos, failed before it was set to release two landers to the surface of Phobos. Roughly two-thirds of all spacecraft destined for Mars have failed without completing their missions, and it has a reputation as a difficult space exploration target. Missions that ended prematurely after Phobos 1 and 2 (1988) include (see Probing difficulties section for more details): Following the 1993 failure of the Mars Observer orbiter, the NASA Mars Global Surveyor achieved Mars orbit in 1997. This mission was