🚀 MMX will launch aboard Japan’s H3 rocket in its most powerful 24L configuration, with two first-stage engines and four solid rocket boosters! #MMXLIFTOFF is scheduled for October 20 at 04:41:03 JST from Tanegashima Space Center.

🧊 Does Phobos have an icy heart? MMX’s Mass Spectrum Analyzer (MSA) will study charged particles around the moons, searching for clues to hidden ice. If Phobos contains ice deep inside, it could hint that this little moon began life as a captured asteroid!

Phobos-ia fed. Here you go: Wait… a sample of Mars?! 👀 NASA contributed MMX’s pneumatic sampler, P-SMP, to collect material from the surface of Phobos. This may include Mars grains ejected by ancient impacts and captured by Phobos. Could these fragments reveal Mars’s past? 🔴

You asked for the potato. Here it is: 🐍 A mythical beast heads to Phobos! MMX’s OROCHI camera ('Optical RadiOmeter composed of CHromatic Imagers') shares its name with Japan’s legendary eight-headed serpent. The link? OROCHI has eight wavelength channels to identify minerals on Phobos.

MMX aims to bring at least 10 g of Phobos back to Earth, gathered with two samplers onboard the spacecraft. C-SMP will 'core' out a sample from 2 cm below the surface, while P-SMP (pneumatic) will collect material using a small whirlwind of nitrogen gas.

Phobos orbits only about 6,000 km above the surface of Mars, closer to its planet than any other moon in the Solar System.

🚀 MMX fact: Phobos's biggest crater, Stickney, is about 9 km wide, a huge dent for such a small moon. Whatever hit it came close to breaking Phobos apart.

A camera with a mythical namesake! 👺 MMX’s TENGOO stands for 'TElescopic Nadir imager for GeOmOrphology'—but its name evokes the tengu, a Japanese folklore creature with a red face and long nose. TENGOO will snap detailed images of Phobos's terrain!

Did you know? Protecting future Martians 👩‍🚀 The Interplanetary Radiation Environment Monitor (IREM) onboard MMX will measure the space radiation environment, helping evaluate the exposure dose for a human crew that may one day visit the Martian system!

MMX won't only visit Phobos. The spacecraft also plans to make observations of Mars's smaller, more distant moon, Deimos.

🥔 Potato incoming! Both of Mars's moons were discovered in August 1877 by astronomer Asaph Hall at the US Naval Observatory in Washington.

Phobos-ia fed. Here you go: Gravity on Phobos is less than 1/1,000 of Earth's. MMX Project Manager Kawakatsu compares landing on Mars's moon to landing a balloon: the weak gravity softens the touchdown, but a small sideways nudge can rival the downward pull & topple the spacecraft! 🎈

What secrets are hidden in Phobos’s rocks? 🪨 MMX’s MIRS instrument, developed by France's CNES, will examine reflected infrared light from the moon to hunt for water-bearing minerals and organic matter. What can these clues tell us about Phobos’s origins?

Your daily dose of Phobos-ia: Phobos is only about 27 km across at its widest. That's too small for its gravity to pull it into a ball, which is why it looks like a potato. 🥔

MMX aims to bring at least 10 grams of Phobos back to Earth, gathered using two different sampling mechanisms installed on the spacecraft. C-SMP will 'core' out a sample from 2 cm below the surface, while P-SMP (pneumatic) will collect surface material using a small whirlwind of pure nitrogen gas.

One potato, served fresh from Mars orbit: MMX won't only visit Phobos. It also plans to make observations of Mars' smaller, more distant moon, Deimos.

NASA's MEGANE instrument on MMX will map what Phobos is made of by measuring gamma rays and neutrons. 'Megane' is Japanese for 'eyeglasses'. 👓