A space agency from Japan is aiming to bring back soil samples from Phobos – a moon of Mars.

According to an article on phys.org, The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has ambitions to gather 10 grams of soil from this moon in the aim of garnering an understanding of Mars’s biosphere and origins.

Scientists from the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science believe that Phobos’ soil contains materials from Mars that were carried by sandstorms, with JAXA scientists estimating that 0.1% of Phobos’ surface soil arrived from the Red Planet.

In the past JAXA has sent probes such as Hayabusa 2 to gather samples from the asteroid Ryugu. Launching in December 2014, the probe would successfully return samples of the asteroid to Earth in December 2020. 

Regarding their latest mission to Phobos, they are looking to arrive back on Earth with the samples in 2029, with the launch of the explorer occurring in 2024.