JAXA sets MMX launch for October 2026, Rocket Lab lifts an iQPS satellite and Firefly tests a lunar heater
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency expects to launch its Martian Moons eXploration probe in October 2026. Elsewhere, Rocket Lab delivered a Japanese radar satellite to orbit, and Firefly Aerospace added a radioisotope heater to its upcoming lunar lander.
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JAXA schedules the MMX probe launch
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency announced that it will launch the Martian Moons eXploration probe from the Tanegashima Space Center on 20 October 2026. The mission will use an H3 rocket and aims to spend about three years in orbit around Mars, landing on Phobos to collect at least 10 grams of surface material. Supported by United States and European space agencies, the probe also carries the IDEFIX rover for surface measurements and will observe Deimos without landing, before a return capsule brings the samples to Australia in 2031.[1]
Rocket Lab launches a radar satellite
Rocket Lab launched a synthetic-aperture radar Earth-observing satellite for the Institute for Q-shu Pioneers of Space from its Mahia site in New Zealand using an Electron rocket. The payload expands the Japanese company's commercial radar constellation with imaging that remains independent of clouds and darkness, marking Rocket Lab's eighth launch for the operator.[2]
Firefly prepares a lunar heater test
Firefly Aerospace stated that Zeno Power's radioisotope heater unit will fly on a Blue Ghost lunar lander no earlier than 2028. The unit generates 5 watts of thermal power from americium-241, and the mission will attempt to keep the lander's structural, communications and thermal subsystems functioning through the 14-Earth-day lunar night.[3]
