The MMX rover: performing in situ surface investigations on Phobos

Michel, Patrick; Ulamec, Stephan; Böttger, Ute; Grott, M.; Murdoch, Naomi; Vernazza, Pierre; Sunday, Cecily; Zhang, Yun; Valette, Rudy; Castellani, Romain; Biele, Jens; Tardivel, Simon; Groussin, O.; Jordá, L.; Knollenberg, J.; Grundmann, Jan Thimo; Arrat, Denis; Pont, G.; Mary, Stéphane; Grebenstein, Markus; Miyamoto, Hirdy; Nakamura, Tomoki; Wada, Koji; Yoshikawa, Kunihiko; Kuramoto, Kiyoshi

doi:10.1186/s40623-021-01464-7

Cited by 26 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…Additionally, zoom-up observations by TENGOO would capture the upwelling of dusty warm air into the upper atmosphere. Ions escaping from the Martian upper atmosphere are detectable by MSA with distinguishing isotopic mass of elements including O and C. MMX will carry a rover provided by CNES and DLR for scientific and engineering purposes including being a scout for the lander (Michel et al 2021). The landing system and landing operation of the mothership have been studied to absorb the uncertainties in the mechanical properties of Phobos surface regolith such as the surface layer strength.…”

Section: Table 3 (Continued)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Martian moons exploration MMX: sample return mission to Phobos elucidating formation processes of habitable planets

Kuramoto

Kawakatsu

Fujimoto

et al. 2022

Earth Planets Space

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Martian moons exploration, MMX, is the new sample return mission planned by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) targeting the two Martian moons with the scheduled launch in 2024 and return to the Earth in 2029. The major scientific objectives of this mission are to determine the origin of Phobos and Deimos, to elucidate the early Solar System evolution in terms of volatile delivery across the snow line to the terrestrial planets having habitable surface environments, and to explore the evolutionary processes of both moons and Mars surface environment. To achieve these objectives, during a stay in circum-Martian space over about 3 years MMX will collect samples from Phobos along with close-up observations of this inner moon and carry out multiple flybys of Deimos to make comparative observations of this outer moon. Simultaneously, successive observations of the Martian atmosphere will also be made by utilizing the advantage of quasi-equatorial spacecraft orbits along the moons’ orbits. Graphical Abstract

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Section: Table 3 (Continued)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Martian moons exploration MMX: sample return mission to Phobos elucidating formation processes of habitable planets

Kuramoto

Kawakatsu

Fujimoto

et al. 2022

Earth Planets Space

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“…Several missions have been planned for the near future, including the Japanese Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) sample return mission that is expected to launch in 2024 to Martian moons Phobos and Deimos to determine their origin, evolutionary processes, and to investigate the delivery of volatiles across the snow line in the early solar system (Kuramoto et al 2022). In addition, MMX will also deploy a rover to the surface of Phobos to perform in situ analyses of the regolith properties (Michel et al 2022). Moreover, the very real potential of a near-Earth asteroid (NEA) impacting Earth is grounds for understanding in detail the cohesive properties of these airless bodies so that proper mitigation strategies can be implemented (National Science and Technology Council 2021).…”

Section: Asteroid Surfaces and Structuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

AFM Force Measurements to Explore Grain Contacts with Relevance for Planetary Materials

2022

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Most small asteroids are defined as “rubble piles” or bodies with zero tensile strength and large bulk porosity. The cohesive forces that hold them together act at the grain scale, and their magnitude is often estimated from similar materials when used in simulations. Improving the accuracy of predictions of asteroid strengths requires suitable laboratory measurements of relevant materials, as well as increasing the availability of materials from sample return. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) is well suited for force measurements relative to particle–particle interactions. In this work, we use AFM force measurements to evaluate the cohesive forces that act between micron-sized grains. We investigate the effect of the sizes of the interacting grains of JSC-1 lunar simulant using three sample sizes (<45, 75–125, and 125–250 μm) and three spherical AFM tip diameters (2 μm, 15 μm, and 45 μm). In all cases, adhesion forces were larger at ambient relative humidity (RH), where the water layer on the surface of the grains is more prominent, creating a larger meniscus between the tip and the grain upon contact. We observed weaker adhesion with larger grain/tip size, which can be attributed to the changing contact area between the samples and the tips. We expect that our approach will pave the way to a better understanding of regolith surface properties such as adhesion and cohesion and provide suitable input for models that can be used to predict the evolution of asteroids and their particle behaviors.

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“…The MMX Rover, a mobile surface science package, provided by CNES and DLR with contributions from Spain and Japan (Michel et al 2021;Ulamec et al 2019) is planned to be delivered to the surface of Phobos during a landing rehearsal of the main spacecraft. The rover will determine the physical and mineralogical properties of the undisturbed Phobos surface material and the heterogeneity within the landing and roving area.…”

Section: Rover and Its Deployment On Phobosmentioning

confidence: 99%

Science operation plan of Phobos and Deimos from the MMX spacecraft

Nakamura

Ikeda

Kouyama³

et al. 2021

Earth Planets Space

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The science operations of the spacecraft and remote sensing instruments for the Martian Moon eXploration (MMX) mission are discussed by the mission operation working team. In this paper, we describe the Phobos observations during the first 1.5 years of the spacecraft’s stay around Mars, and the Deimos observations before leaving the Martian system. In the Phobos observation, the spacecraft will be placed in low-altitude quasi-satellite orbits on the equatorial plane of Phobos and will make high-resolution topographic and spectroscopic observations of the Phobos surface from five different altitudes orbits. The spacecraft will also attempt to observe polar regions of Phobos from a three-dimensional quasi-satellite orbit moving out of the equatorial plane of Phobos. From these observations, we will constrain the origin of Phobos and Deimos and select places for landing site candidates for sample collection. For the Deimos observations, the spacecraft will be injected into two resonant orbits and will perform many flybys to observe the surface of Deimos over as large an area as possible. Graphical Abstract

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The MMX rover: performing in situ surface investigations on Phobos

Cited by 26 publications

References 56 publications

Martian moons exploration MMX: sample return mission to Phobos elucidating formation processes of habitable planets

Martian moons exploration MMX: sample return mission to Phobos elucidating formation processes of habitable planets

AFM Force Measurements to Explore Grain Contacts with Relevance for Planetary Materials

Science operation plan of Phobos and Deimos from the MMX spacecraft

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