Japan probe on its way to Mars moon
Election
Originally published by Citizen Digital — Read the original article →
A Japanese spacecraft was on its way to one of Mars’s moons on Tuesday 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 4:41 am (1941 GMT Monday), according to a live stream broadcast by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.
Over an hour later, JAXA announced via the live broadcast that the probe had successfully separated from the H3 and was “beginning its journey toward the Martian system”.
