Can Japan succeed where a Russian space mission failed? Tokyo’s new probe aims to bring home soil from Phobos, one of Mars’ two moons.

Late on October 19, Moscow time, the Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) spacecraft, developed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), launched toward Mars. Its mission is to study the Red Planet’s moons, Phobos and Deimos, and bring back a soil sample from one of them. The mission could mark a major milestone in space exploration: Scientists have never recovered a soil sample from a Martian moon. Samples from Phobos could contain a substantial proportion of material from the Red Planet itself. Roscosmos planned a similar mission in 2011, but a launch error thwarted Russian scientists’ a