1 articles · Updated · lte.observatoiredeparis.psl.eu · Oct 15
Summary
JAXA chose SE-OP’s ephemerides of Phobos and Deimos to guide MMX, the mission that aims to land on Phobos, collect samples and return them to Earth in 2031.
Three years of work with JAXA and France’s CNES produced the orbital data, which are meant to give MMX the most accurate encounter conditions around Mars’s moons.
ESA’s Mars Express, in orbit since 2004, supplied astrometric observations that helped refine those ephemerides for the mission.
MMX is designed to probe the long-debated origin of Mars’s moons, whose asteroid-like traits and unusual orbits have left scientists unsure how they formed.