Moons of Mars formed a large moon. Gravitational interactions between this moon and the outer ring formed Phobos and Deimos. Later, the large moon crashed into Mars, but the two small moons remained in orbit. This theory agrees with the fine-grained surface of the moons and their high porosity. The outer disk would create fine-grained material. While many Martian probes provided images and other data about Phobos and Deimos, only few were dedicated to these satellites and intended to perform a flyby or landing on the surface. Two probes under the Soviet Phobos program were successfully launched in 1988, but neither conducted the
Lithobraking launched, including penetrators on the two Phobos probe landers targeted for Mars' moon Phobos and ones for Mars itself on Mars 96 and Deep Space 2, but so far none have succeeded. The cancelled LUNAR-A probe would have carried penetrators to the Moon. Lithobraking as a method for de-orbiting a spacecraft has not been used due to the extremely high orbital velocities of most bodies (e.g. for the Moon it is over 7000 km/h). However, some small moons and asteroids have very low gravity and it could conceivably be used there (e.g. Phobos has an "escape velocity" of 40 km/h.)