Martian Moons Exploration grams of soil into the sample container. The spacecraft will then take off from Phobos and make several flybys of the smaller moon Deimos before sending the Sample Return Capsule back to Earth, arriving in July 2029. Martian Moons Exploration The Martian Moons Exploration (MMX) is a robotic space probe set for launch in 2024 to bring back the first samples from Mars' largest moon Phobos. Developed by the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and announced in 9 June 2015, MMX will land and collect samples from Phobos once or twice, along with conducting Deimos flyby observations and monitoring Mars'
Transit of Phobos from Mars Transit of Phobos from Mars A transit of Phobos across the Sun as seen from Mars takes place when Phobos passes directly between the Sun and a point on the surface of Mars, obscuring a large part of the Sun's disc for an observer on Mars. During a transit, Phobos can be seen from Mars as a large black disc rapidly moving across the face of the Sun. At the same time, the shadow (antumbra) of Phobos moves across the Martian surface. The event could also be regarded as a particularly quick and shallow annular solar eclipse by Phobos. A