Phobos is the innermost and larger of the two natural satellites of Mars, the other being Deimos. Both moons were discovered in 1877 by American astronomer Asaph Hall. Phobos is named after the Greek god Phobos, a son of Ares (Mars) and Aphrodite (Venus) and twin brother of Deimos. Phobos was the god and personification of fear and panic.
Deimos is the smaller and outermost of the two natural satellites of Mars, the other being Phobos. Deimos has a mean radius of 6.2 km (3.9 mi) and takes 30.3 hours to orbit Mars. Deimos is 23,460 km (14,580 mi) from Mars, much further than Mars's other moon, Phobos. It is named after Deimos, the Ancient Greek god and personification of dread and terror, and who is also a son of Ares and Aphrodite and the twin brother of Phobos.
Uncrewed spacecraft or unmanned spacecraft are spacecraft without people on board, used for robotic spaceflight. Uncrewed spacecraft may have varying levels of autonomy from human input; they may be remote controlled, remote guided or even autonomous, meaning they have a pre-programmed list of operations, which they will execute unless otherwise instructed.
A lander is a spacecraft that descends towards, and comes to rest on, the surface of an astronomical body. In contrast to an impact probe, which makes a hard landing that damages or destroys the probe upon reaching the surface, a lander makes a soft landing after which the probe remains functional.
The planet Mars has been explored remotely by spacecraft. Probes sent from Earth, beginning in the late 20th century, have yielded a large increase in knowledge about the Martian system, focused primarily on understanding its geology and habitability potential. Engineering interplanetary journeys is complicated and the exploration of Mars has experienced a high failure rate, especially the early attempts. Roughly sixty percent of all spacecraft destined for Mars failed before completing their missions and some failed before their observations could begin. Some missions have met with unexpected success, such as the twin Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity which operated for years beyond their specification.
The Aurora programme is a human spaceflight programme of the European Space Agency (ESA) established in 2001. The objective is to formulate and then to implement a European long-term plan for exploration of the Solar System using robotic spacecraft and human spaceflight to investigate bodies holding promise for traces of life beyond the Earth.
ExoMars is an astrobiology programme by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Russian space agency Roscosmos.
Fobos-Grunt or Phobos-Grunt was an attempted Russian sample return mission to Phobos, one of the moons of Mars. Fobos-Grunt also carried the Chinese Mars orbiter Yinghuo-1 and the tiny Living Interplanetary Flight Experiment funded by the Planetary Society.
The two moons of Mars are Phobos and Deimos. They are irregular in shape. Both were discovered by American astronomer Asaph Hall in August 1877 and are named after the Greek mythological twin characters Phobos (fear) and Deimos who accompanied their father Ares into battle. Ares, god of war, was known to the Romans as Mars.
A sample-return mission is a spacecraft mission to collect and return samples from an extraterrestrial location to Earth for analysis. Sample-return missions may bring back merely atoms and molecules or a deposit of complex compounds such as loose material ("soil") and rocks. These samples may be obtained in a number of ways, such as soil and rock excavation or a collector array used for capturing particles of solar wind or cometary debris.
A Mars Sample-Return (MSR) mission is a proposed spaceflight mission to collect rock and dust samples on Mars and then return them to Earth. Sample-return would be a very powerful type of exploration, because the analysis is freed from the time, budget, and space constraints of spacecraft sensors.
A human mission to Mars has been the subject of science fiction since the 1880s, and of aerospace engineering and scientific proposals since the late 1940s. Plans include landing on Mars for exploration at a minimum, with some considering exploring its moons Phobos and Deimos. Long term proposals have included sending settlers and starting terraforming of the planet.
Mars-Grunt, also known as Expedition-M, is a robotic spacecraft sample return mission proposed to be sent to Mars in mid-2020s. It was proposed to the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) by the Russian Space Research Institute.
Hayabusa Mk2 was a proposed Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) space mission aimed at visiting a small primitive asteroid and returning a sample to Earth for laboratory analysis. It was intended to be the follow-on mission to JAXA's Hayabusa mission, as well as the Hayabusa2 mission. The latest proposal for Hayabusa Mk2 stated its target to be the dormant comet 4015 Wilson–Harrington, with a launch of the probe in 2018. From 2007 to 2010, it was also considered as a joint JAXA-ESA mission under the name Marco Polo. The in-situ investigation and sample analysis would allow scientists to improve our knowledge of the physical and chemical properties of a small Near-Earth Object (NEO) which is thought to have kept the original composition of the solar nebula in which planet formed. Thus, it would provide some constraints to the models of planet formation and some information on how life may have been brought to Earth. Information on the physical structure will help defining efficient mitigation strategies against a potential threatening object.
Chang'e 5 is the fifth lunar exploration mission of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program, and China's first lunar sample-return mission. Like its predecessors, the spacecraft is named after the Chinese moon goddess Chang'e. It launched at 20:30 UTC on 23 November 2020 from Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site on Hainan Island, landed on the Moon on 1 December 2020, collected ~1,731 g (61.1 oz) of lunar samples, and returned to the Earth at 17:59 UTC on 16 December 2020.
The Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM), also known as the Asteroid Retrieval and Utilization (ARU) mission and the Asteroid Initiative, was a space mission proposed by NASA in 2013. The Asteroid Retrieval Robotic Mission (ARRM) spacecraft would rendezvous with a large near-Earth asteroid and use robotic arms with anchoring grippers to retrieve a 4-meter boulder from the asteroid.
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 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 on 9 June 2015, MMX will land and collect samples from Phobos once or twice, along with conducting Deimos flyby observations and monitoring Mars' climate.
Deimos and Phobos Interior Explorer (DePhine) is a European mission concept to use a dedicated orbiter to explore the two Moons of Mars: Phobos and Deimos. The mission concept was proposed in 2016 to the European Space Agency's Cosmic Vision programme for launch in 2030, but it was not chosen as a finalist for the M5 mission class.
