Mars moon lander set to launch on 19 October

The Martian Moons eXploration ( MMX ) mission is set to launch into space on a H3 rocket from the Tanegashima Space Center at 04:41 JST on 20 October 2026 (20:41 BST / 21:41 CEST on 19 October 2026). MMX will be the first mission to collect a sample from Mars’s moon Phobos and bring it back to Earth.

MMX is led by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), in collaboration with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the French space agency (CNES), the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the European Space Agency (ESA).