Japan’s space agency launched the Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission on Monday, sending an unmanned probe toward Mars’ moon Phobos to retrieve surface samples and return them to Earth. The spacecraft lifted off aboard an H3 rocket from Tanegashima Space Center at 21:41 local time, beginning a year-long journey to the red planet, according to JAXA and international reports .

The mission aims to collect 10 grams of material from Phobos, with scientists hoping the samples will determine whether the moon formed from a giant impact or was a captured asteroid. JAXA’s probe will enter a quasi-satellite orbit around Phobos, deploy the IDEFIX rover, and conduct observations of both Phobos and Deimos using instruments including spectroscopes provided by NASA and France’s CNES .

Between late 2028 and early 2029, the spacecraft is scheduled to perform two autonomous landings on Phobos, each lasting two to three hours, to gather samples. The mission will also test Phobos as a potential staging base for future human missions to Mars, according to JAXA .

The probe will return the samples to Earth, building on JAXA’s prior success with the Hayabusa2 mission, which retrieved material from the asteroid Ryugu in 2020. The findings could provide insights into how water and organic compounds reached rocky planets, JAXA stated .