JAXA launches MMX to sample Phobos

This note is verified. The reel was posted at 9:49 am IST on 20 October 2026. The launch time and the separation come from JAXA's launch-result release of 20 October 2026. The same desk file also uses JAXA's launch-time release of 18 October 2026, the JAXA MMX mission site, an ESA page, The Hindu carrying AFP, Kyodo News and NHK World. Where those later dates differ, each date stays with the outlet that printed it.

Japan's space agency, JAXA, launched the Martian Moons eXploration probe, MMX, on an H3 rocket, flight No. 10, from the Tanegashima Space Center. JAXA times liftoff at 04:41:03 Japan Standard Time on 20 October 2026. That instant is 01:11 IST on 20 October. In Europe and the United States it was still the evening of 19 October. ESA's page, prepared before liftoff, is headed "Mars moon lander set to launch on 19 October", which is that same window read from Europe. The Hindu, carrying AFP, reported a successful launch. Its headline calls the flight a historic Mars moon mission.

JAXA says the rocket flew as planned. The probe separated about 71 minutes and 13 seconds after liftoff and was injected into its planned orbit. The caption rounds the same interval to about 71 minutes.

The caption frames the cruise as about a year, with Mars in 2027. ESA and Kyodo both put arrival in Mars orbit in August 2027. Those two wordings sit side by side: 2027 in the caption, August 2027 in ESA and Kyodo.

Phobos is the larger of Mars's two moons. The plan set out in the caption is to orbit Phobos, deploy the French-German IDEFIX rover, and then land to collect at least 10 grams of surface material. Kyodo describes two landing attempts by the spacecraft. The mission is also to observe Deimos, Mars's other moon. The partners named in the caption are NASA, France's CNES, Germany's DLR and ESA.

What these sources record today is the launch and the planned orbit. Landing and collection are the later plan, after the probe reaches Phobos. The return date is not the same in every report. The JAXA MMX site, which the caption follows, puts recovery of the sample capsule in Australia in fiscal year 2031. Kyodo says the samples are due back on Earth in July 2031.

Kyodo and NHK describe MMX as the first mission to bring back samples from a Martian moon. The caption uses that same line. The purpose named in the caption is to learn how Phobos and Deimos formed: whether they came from a collision, or whether Mars captured asteroids. That line is the mission's stated aim. It is a question the samples are meant to address, and it is not a finding from this launch.

The picture on this page is a frame from the reel. The credit line is exact: the visuals are NASA public-domain file stills, not footage of the launch. Phobos in the frame is credited to NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona. Mars in the frame is credited to NASA/USGS.