Phobos Frontier: Japan’s Groundbreaking Mission to Mars’ Mysterious Moon

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_01] This is Space News Today Series 29 Episode 125, full broadcast on 19 October 2026. Coming up on Space News Today, a sample return mission to the Martian moon Phobos, our solar system's life expectancy far shorter than previously thought, and NASA's SpaceX Crew-13 mission arrives aboard the International Space Station for what will be a six-month mission on

[00:00:25] [SPEAKER_01] the orbiting outpost. All that and more coming up on Space News Today. Welcome to Space News Today with Stuart Gary.

[00:00:50] [SPEAKER_01] Japan's Martian moons exploration mission, the MMX, is slated to launch today on the first ever sample return mission to the red planet's largest moon Phobos. The flight aboard a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency JAXA H3 rocket from the Tanegashima Space Center, thousand kilometers south of Tokyo, will take a year to reach Mars, returning to Earth, landing in the Australian outback in 2031.

[00:01:16] [SPEAKER_01] Despite the large number of missions to Mars, its two moons Phobos and Deimos remain a mystery. There are huge open questions about how they formed and what they're made of. The most popular hypothesis is that they're either captured asteroids from the nearby main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, or they're the remains of debris thrown up into orbit following a giant asteroid collision onto the Martian

[00:01:41] [SPEAKER_01] surface. But to find out what really happened, scientists need to collect samples, and that's where the Martian moon's Explorer mission comes in. MMX will be the first spacecraft to orbit Phobos, the first to land on it, and the first to collect samples from its surface for return to Earth. The 4500kg spacecraft will arrive at Mars in August, transferring to orbit around the 27km wide moon

[00:02:08] [SPEAKER_01] a month later. And then it'll map the surface of the tiny moon to identify a suitable landing site. After studying both Phobos and Deimos from orbit, it'll deploy a small 25kg four-wheeled land rover called Eidefx in 2029, which will descend down to the Phobos surface, paving the way for the MMX spacecraft which will land once or twice in 2030, collecting up to 10kg of regolith using a pneumatic

[00:02:34] [SPEAKER_01] sampling system. The samples will then be packed into a return module for the journey back to Earth, arriving in 2031. On the way back, MMX will fly past Deimos, taking a closer look, and it will also carry out observations of Mars itself. The MMX spacecraft is equipped with a radiation monitor, high-resolution narrow and wide-field cameras, a LiDAR light detection and ranging system, a near-infrared spectrometer, a gamma ray and neutron spectrometer, a Martian dust monitor,

[00:03:04] [SPEAKER_01] a mass spectrum analyzer, a laser-induced breakdown spectroscope gravity gradiometer, and two different sampling devices. The Eidefx land rover carries four of its own scientific instruments, including two cameras, a radiometer and a Raman spectrometer, providing information to prepare for the landing of the main spacecraft. Gravity on Phobos is so low that Eidefx will only weigh the equivalent of 15g on its surface, and scientists want to see exactly how difficult it

[00:03:33] [SPEAKER_01] will be to operate with such a small gravitational potential. While the MMX mission is led by JAXA, NASA, the French space agency CNES, the German Aerospace Center DLR and the European space agency ESA will also play key roles. And Blue Origin subsidiary Honey Bee Robotics developed the mission's all-important

[00:03:55] [SPEAKER_02] P sampler pneumatic sampling system. We're launching in October this year a pneumatic sampler for MMX and we're expecting to receive the sample back in 2031. It really took a village working for almost two decades

[00:04:08] [SPEAKER_04] to get it to the spine, to get it to the launch pad. The primary purpose of a pneumatic sampler is to capture Phobos material. So by capturing regolith that sits on the surface of Phobos, we're also capturing

[00:04:22] [SPEAKER_02] Martian samples. It carries high pressure gas, very clean ultra-purity nitrogen gas, and then that gets released to kick up the regolith on the Phobos surface. And then gas under the pressure moves

[00:04:37] [SPEAKER_04] the regolith into the container. This entire process happens in a fraction of a second. You blink and it's

[00:04:43] [SPEAKER_02] all done. Once the canister is ready to be stored, we'll release the canister from our mechanism and that gets stored into the sample return capsule and eventually gets returned to Earth. So the scientists are interested in how the two moons of Mars were formed and based on the sample we collect, they can analyze the sample to determine whether it was a captured asteroids or created due to a giant

[00:05:11] [SPEAKER_04] impact. The success of a pneumatic sampler is primarily due to the collaborative efforts between NASA, JAXA,

[00:05:20] [SPEAKER_01] and Blue Origin. And in that report from Blue Origin, we heard from the MMX Systems Technical Program Manager, Yuka Masuyama, and MMX Exploration Systems Vice President, Chris Sackney. This is Space News Today. Still to come, our solar system's life expectancy is far shorter than previously thought, and NASA's SpaceX Crew-13 mission arrives aboard the International Space Station for what will be a

[00:05:45] [SPEAKER_01] six-month mission on the orbiting outpost. All that and more still to come on Space Time. A new study warns that our solar system will end much sooner than previously thought, thanks to

[00:06:09] [SPEAKER_01] massive gravitational perturbations and resonances causing the planets to destabilize as our sun expands. The sun is 4.6 billion years old, and current estimates suggest it has a total lifespan of around 12 billion years. That's about when it will have used up its core hydrogen fuel supply, which it has been fusing into helium. When that happens, the sun's core will contract, increasing in pressure and temperature

[00:06:35] [SPEAKER_01] until it gets hot enough to start fusing helium in its core into carbon and oxygen. Meanwhile, as the core contracts, hydrogen in its shell around the core will heat up and begin burning. At the same time, the sun's outer gaseous envelope, which is now further away from that contracted core, will cool and expand, turning the sun into a bloated old red giant star. As the sun's outer envelope

[00:06:59] [SPEAKER_01] expands, it'll engulf the inner planets Mercury and Venus and most likely the Earth as well. And even if the Earth doesn't get totally consumed, it'll be burned to a crisp or life will be gone. And as the outer envelope continues to expand, it'll detach from the sun's core, becoming a planetary nebula, and exposing the sun's white-hot stellar core as a white dwarf. And that's where this study begins. New simulations suggest that the orbits of the solar system's planets, including Earth,

[00:07:29] [SPEAKER_01] will destabilize as the sun expands into a red giant. The computations by Constantine Badegen and colleagues from the California Institute of Technology are based on numerical experiments designed to analyze the orbital dynamics of the outer solar system under different solar mass loss scenarios. And they show how our solar system's planets will undergo massive gravitational perturbations and planetary resonances, causing their orbits to destabilize as the sun expands. And depending on how

[00:07:58] [SPEAKER_01] much of the sun's mass is ejected during the red giant phase, it means our solar system will be disassembled on a far more rapid timescale than previously thought. The computer simulations suggest that about 40% of simulations will lead to the disruption or violent scattering of the planets while the sun is in its red giant phase, and roughly 90% will break down within 3 billion years. That's much sooner than what was expected. It means instead of lasting some billion billion years,

[00:08:28] [SPEAKER_01] our solar system is now only likely to survive for just a billion years after the sun transforms into a white dwarf. This is space time. Still to come, NASA's SpaceX Crew 13 have arrived aboard the International Space Station just seven hours and 50 minutes after blasting off from the Cape Canaveral Space Force base in Florida. And later in the science report, archaeologists have discovered the earliest known evidence of

[00:08:54] [SPEAKER_01] ancient humans attacking each other with spears. Talk about Cain and Abel. All that and more still to come. On space time, NASA's SpaceX Crew 13 have arrived aboard the International Space Station.

[00:09:23] [SPEAKER_01] The crew of four launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from pad 40 of the Cape Canaveral Space Force base in Florida, rendezvousing with the orbiting outpost seven hours and 50 minutes after liftoff. Their drag-in capsule, Grace, docked onto the forward port of the Harmony module for a planned six-month mission as part of the Expedition 75 crew. During their stay, the team will work on some 250 experiments, including using microgravity to produce human

[00:09:51] [SPEAKER_01] stem cells to improve personalised medicine, disease modelling and pharmaceutical testing for conditions such as heart disease and Parkinson's. They'll also explore crop production through new mostly autonomous plant growth systems and they'll test how plants grow outside dedicated facilities. They'll also undertake human health studies examining factors linked to blood flow anomalies in microgravity and they'll test a new in-flight diagnostic device to monitor astronaut health.

[00:10:19] [SPEAKER_01] Just three hours after Crew 13 blasted off from Cape Canaveral, SpaceX launched another Falcon 9 rocket, this time from Space Launch Complex 4 East at the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, carrying more than 100 mini satellites on the Transporter 18 mission. These carry a range of experiments for government departments, universities and private enterprise. That was followed by another SpaceX launch from Florida, this one from Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center,

[00:10:47] [SPEAKER_01] carrying a new spy satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office. The highly classified NRL-97 mission flew aboard a Falcon Heavy rocket, the first use of this rocket by the spy agency. Falcon Heavy is composed of three Falcon 9 boosters strapped side by side. The use of a Falcon Heavy suggests either a very high orbital target or an extremely heavy payload. The two side boosters returned to landing

[00:11:13] [SPEAKER_01] zones 1 and 2 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station eight minutes after launch. But the core booster appears to have been expended during the mission, meaning no fuel for a boost back burn to Earth or a landing burn. And it doesn't end there in what's been a really busy week for SpaceX. Just a week after Crew 13's arrival on station, NASA's SpaceX Crew 12 undocked from the orbiting outpost Zenith port of the Harmony module for their return journey to Earth following their eight-month mission on

[00:11:43] [SPEAKER_01] station, splashing down in the North Pacific Ocean off the California coast west of Los Angeles. It was an eventful mission for Crew 12. It began early than expected, following the early return to Earth of the Crew 11 mission due to a medical evacuation of one of their crew members. And it was also a late crew replacement for Crew 12, with the original Russian cosmonaut intended to fly on the mission, expelled from the United States following spying allegations. Apparently he was caught violating

[00:12:11] [SPEAKER_01] international trafficking and arms regulations by photographing SpaceX engines, classified documents and other technologies using his phone at a SpaceX facility in Hawthorne, California. Dear oh dear, looks like old Cold War habits die hard. During their 237 days on station, Crew 12 completed 3,792 orbits of the planet, undertaking four spacewalks and carrying out research testing stem cell

[00:12:37] [SPEAKER_01] production for new therapies, demonstrating on-demand IV fluid generation for future missions and studying how the bacteria which causes pneumonia can lead to long-term heart damage. They also conducted nutrition focused research and examined how physical characteristics may affect blood flow during space flight in order to help keep astronauts safe and healthy on future long-duration missions to the Moon and Mars.

[00:13:01] [SPEAKER_01] More and more, it's all becoming about Artemis. This is Space Time. And time now to take a brief look at some of the other stories making news in science this week with a science report.

[00:13:28] [SPEAKER_01] A new study claims men with deeper voices might seem stronger but are not more attractive to women. The findings, reported in the Journal of the Royal Society of Open Science, modified videos of 17 white British males to give them deeper voices. American men watching the videos thought the men in the videos were stronger and better at fighting. But the deeper voices didn't make them any more attractive to American women watching the same videos. Interestingly, however,

[00:13:55] [SPEAKER_01] audio-only recordings of the same men but with higher-pitched voices did make them seem less attractive to the women. When men were asked to guess the weights of the men in the videos, they tended to guess that those with deeper voices weighed more. A new study claims fewer 15-year-olds are now identifying as gay, lesbian or bisexual compared to two years ago. The analysis by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention questioned ninth graders

[00:14:21] [SPEAKER_01] in American junior high schools. The study found that the overall number of junior high school freshmen identifying as LGB fell from 17% in 2023 down to 11% last year. That's interesting because historically, 10% of the population identify as gay or lesbian. The authors found the most dramatic shift was among girls.

[00:14:43] [SPEAKER_01] In 2021, 30% of ninth graders identified as lesbian or bisexual. But by 2025, that number had plummeted to 17%. The drug was largely driven by a reduction in girls identifying specifically as bisexual, which fell by half from 26% down to 13%. The shift was far less significant for 15-year-old boys, where identification

[00:15:06] [SPEAKER_01] shifted only slightly from 9% in 2021 to 7% in 2025. And the authors found that a client is more concentrated among younger teens. All the students, such as seniors in 12th grade, saw little change, dipping only slightly from 18% down to 16%. Now, as for the reasons for the change, they're still being debated, with some researchers suggesting that the LGBTQ plus alphabet identification peaked during the isolation of

[00:15:34] [SPEAKER_01] the COVID-19 pandemic, and that a stabilisation or correction following a decade of rapid growth was always expected. But others suggest that adopting certain labels may have simply been a passing trend, popularised by the socio-political woke targeting younger adolescents. The Ward Meteorological Organisation says that sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific are now forecast to increase to record levels during the next three months.

[00:16:02] [SPEAKER_01] The new data reflects a strengthening of the current Super El Niño. The WMO says that El Niño is firmly established and there's a near 100% likelihood that it will continue through until at least February next year, potentially making it one of the strongest since at least 1950. Scientists recorded an increase in temperatures from an average of 1.6 degrees Celsius above normal in June to 2.5 degrees above normal in August, and is now forecast to reach

[00:16:29] [SPEAKER_01] approximately 3.7 degrees Celsius peaking around December. And for Australia, that means hotter conditions and less rain. Anthropologists say a round hole in the shoulder blade of a 75,000-year-old Neanderthal fossil could be the earliest known evidence of ancient humans attacking one another with spears. The remains were found under 7.5 metres of rock and sediment in a cave in Iraqi Kurdistan,

[00:16:55] [SPEAKER_01] and include a 15mm diameter circular hole created by a sharpened wooden spear that penetrated the left chest cavity from the front and travelled through the body including a lung and likely major arteries before punching a hole in the left scapula, which scientists say would have quickly ended the Neanderthal's life. The findings published in the journal Scientific Reports say tiny bone shards knocked out of place by the

[00:17:18] [SPEAKER_01] spear indicate it entered from above on a downward trajectory. Promoters of the pseudoscience of homeopathy are making a concerted effort in the United States to limit the Food and Drug Administration's ability to regulate the swindle. Skeptics Tim Mendham says promoters of the phony practice have now managed to convince a number of US senators to sponsor a bill, despite all the peer-reviewed scientific

[00:17:42] [SPEAKER_03] studies clearly showing homeopathy doesn't work. Homeopathy is a medical in quotes treatment developed in the late 1800s by a German named Hahnemann, Samuel Hahnemann, supposedly based on the idea that like cures like, that's one aspect of it, so if you're suffering from colds and sniffles you should take a potion made up with onions which makes you sniffle, cry etc, so obviously that has a link to cold. Also the preparation is very important for homeopathy, you have to have continual dilutions to make it work,

[00:18:11] [SPEAKER_03] so basically you take your homeopathic liquid which is made from supposedly from these particular chemicals, herbs, you know rocks even in some cases and you take a drop of that and you dilute it in a hundred drops of water and then you take a drop of that, the dilution to 100 and you drop it in another 100 so now you're down to what 10,000 and then you take another drop of that and then you dilute it in another 100 and you're now down to one in a million and you keep doing it. See that's like

[00:18:37] [SPEAKER_03] one, two, three dilutions, they take it up to about 20, 30, 40, 50, even 100 dilutions which means there's basically nothing left of the thing you were diluting in the first place. There are various other aspects to it, you're supposed to take your dilution each time bang it on something in the test tube or whatever you've got it, it used to be banging on a bible which is strange but bang it on something hard, often something leather, it's a bit softer so it's not going to break the glass container and then

[00:19:02] [SPEAKER_03] you sell it to people as a treatment, in some cases claim to be a cure for you name it, any condition that's all you want to name. Shyness, blockages, this is an actual one that's being sold that I've seen to treat blockages, obviously blockages is like a wall that stops you doing things. Someone got a bit of the Berlin Wall, crushed it down, tried to dilute it and give that to people as a treatment for emotional blockages. It's ludicrous, it's diluted to the extent where there's nothing left, the answer to

[00:19:31] [SPEAKER_03] that by the homeopathic community is that the water retains a memory of this original subject, meaning that it doesn't actually have to have anything left in it, it does have a memory which is a worry because every time someone goes to the toilet they add something to the water which is a memory therefore of what you're drinking is what you put down the toilet. The Fukushima nuclear power station, earthquake, some of that would have gone in the water, nuclear action it would have been diluted, wouldn't matter how diluted it was, could the homeopath still impactful, effective and so

[00:19:58] [SPEAKER_03] therefore everyone is drinking radioactive water regardless of where you are. The whole notion is silly, the reality is silly, it's been tested to see if it actually works. The big issue for testing something like that is one, is it safe and then two, does it actually work? Is it efficacious? Homeopathy is probably safe, it's not going to, you're paying for water so or a little bit of sugar water perhaps to add some flavour to it. So it's expensive water, so it's not going to hurt you, it's probably safe. Is it going to work? No, it's pretty simple now. In many cases in the

[00:20:25] [SPEAKER_03] skeptical community you say, yeah it might be a little bit, yes, no, whatever. Homeopathy is one of those things where you can say no. It certainly doesn't work better than placebo and so many tests have actually tested it and systematic investigations have come out and said there's nothing there. But there's a couple of American senators who are now trying to get the Food and Drug Administration in the US to loosen up their controls on what could actually be tested and what works. They're obviously supporters of homeopathy therefore and there's a bit of an outrage by

[00:20:53] [SPEAKER_03] their homeopathic community as they would be, but there still hasn't changed the evidence that it doesn't work. It doesn't do anything, perhaps makes people feel good, the trouble is that if they think it's working they're not going to go to establish medical practices so they might be missing out on a cure for what may be a real condition and therefore that's when it becomes dangerous. The substitution for things that work by things that don't work. So it's not just the case

[00:21:15] [SPEAKER_01] of these senators wanting to get rid of the nanny state, there's more to it than that,

[00:21:19] [SPEAKER_03] there's actually some real harm that can come. Yes, it certainly might be a nanny state thing, they're not all tend to be sort of nanny state oriented or anti-nanny state oriented politicians. Some of them come from states where homeopathies and the alternative medicine industry is a big thing so maybe there's a bit of protection for their local industry. They just don't want people interfering in this particular industry despite the fact that doesn't work. That's the skeptics,

[00:21:42] [SPEAKER_01] Tim Mendham and this is Space News Today. And that's the show for now. Space News Today is available every Monday, Wednesday and Friday through Bytes.com, SoundCloud, YouTube, your favorite podcast download provider

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