Phobos And Deimos & Mars Environment Phobos And Deimos & Mars Environment Phobos And Deimos & Mars Environment (PADME) is a low-cost NASA Mars orbiter mission concept that would address longstanding unknowns about Mars' two moons Phobos and Deimos and their environment. The PADME mission competed for Discovery Program funding, but lost to the Psyche and Lucy missions. The mission is led by Anthony Colaprete (Principal Investigator). Other principals include Pascal Lee (Deputy Principal Investigator) and Butler Hine (Project Manager). The origin of Mars' satellites, which were discovered by astronomer Asaph Hall, remains unknown. PADME would advance the scientific understanding of the origin of Phobos and
Phobos 2 to approach within of Phobos' surface and release two landers, one a mobile , the other a stationary platform, contact with "Phobos 2" was lost. The mission ended when the spacecraft signal failed to be successfully reacquired on 27 March 1989. The cause of the failure was determined to be a malfunction of the on-board computer. The "Phobos 2" infrared spectrometer (ISM) obtained 45000 spectra in the near infrared (from ) in the equatorial areas of Mars, with a spatial resolution ranging from , and 400 spectra of Phobos at 700 m resolution. These observations made it possible to retrieve