Japan's Phobos mission: The tiny Martian moon that could reveal big secrets about our Solar System

A Japanese spacecraft is on its way to Phobos, one of Mars's moons, on a world-first mission to retrieve samples, potentially helping unlock the origins of the Solar System and life on Earth. The flagship H3 rocket carrying the unmanned Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) probe blasted off into a pitch-black sky from the Tanegashima Space Center at 4.41am on Oct 20. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said it has received signals from the spacecraft as expected, confirming it is operating normally. Queensland University of Technology's space science associate professor David Flannery discusses the significance of the mission on CNA's Asia First, including the challenges of retrieving samples from Phobos and how the technology could pave the way for future human missions to Mars. Read more: https://cna.asia/3UzlrNK Subscribe to our channel here: https://cna.asia/youtubesub Visit our website: https://cna.asia Download our app: https://cna.asia/app Get our editors' picks of stories via chat apps: Telegram: https://cna.asia/telegram WhatsApp: https://cna.asia/whatsapp Follow us on these platforms: https://www.facebook.com/channelnewsasia https://www.instagram.com/channelnewsasia https://www.tiktok.com/@channelnewsasia