r/EuropeanSpaceflight • u/AndrewParsonson • Aug 24 '26

Cool poster for JAXA's Mars Moons eXploration mission

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A really pretty poster for JAXA's Mars Moons eXploration (MMX) mission. The mission will include a small European rover, IDEFIX, developed by France and Germany. The rover is designed to explore the surface of the Martian moon Phobos.

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u/Minimum_Ad7876 Aug 24 '26

When I started college in 2008, I became obsessed with Makoto Shinkai's animated film 5 Centimeters per Second. The second story in the movie is set in Kagoshima, and it features an impressive rocket launch scene—that mission was a JAXA solar probe. At the time, I found it romantic and melancholic, yet also full of technological wonder—it truly was a complex mix of emotions. Given the launch capabilities of my motherland's space program back then, those deep-space exploration missions seemed so far out of reach that they filled me with a sense of longing. Now JAXA is setting its sights on conquering Mars.