JAXA to Land Rover on Phobos, Then Keep Driving It Until the Moon Is Fully Mapped Bumper to Bumper
Japan's MMX mission will drop the IDEFIX rover onto Phobos and then, per the revised flight plan, drive it back and forth across the entire 27-kilometre moon until every square metre has been photographed at 40-centimetre resolution.
JAXA will launch its MMX probe to Phobos on Oct. 19 and, upon arrival, unload the IDEFIX rover with instructions to drive the length and breadth of the Martian moon until the entire surface has been photographed at 40-centimetre resolution, mission planners confirmed.
The revised flight plan, described by the agency as «a modest expansion of the mapping phase», calls for the rover to traverse Phobos in overlapping lanes, turning at the edges and continuing until no crater, boulder or patch of regolith has escaped the camera. Engineers at Tanegashima said the rover's route was laid out the way a municipal street-sweeper covers a car park, and that the team intends to keep it rolling for as long as the solar panels hold out.
«We looked at the original survey and asked ourselves why we would stop at the interesting parts,» said a JAXA mission director. «Phobos is small. If we are going to go all that way, we may as well do the whole thing.»
The H3-24L rocket will carry the spacecraft on a ten-month cruise, arriving in August 2027, after which the rover will be lowered to the surface and released. Ground crews have already begun rehearsing the driving pattern in a gravel yard behind the Tanegashima assembly building, pacing out lanes with rope and marking turns with traffic cones.
Officials added that if the rover finishes Phobos early, it will be pointed at Deimos and told to start again.
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