Japan Launches Mars Moon Probe in Blazing Pre-Dawn Liftoff

A Japanese H3 rocket carrying a probe bound for the moons of Mars lit up the pre-dawn sky over Tanegashima on October 20, its blinding exhaust turning night briefly into day over the island’s coastline.

X user Tsukuru filmed the launch from a hillside overlooking the sea, capturing the rocket’s flame flaring across the horizon before it climbed steadily into the darkness, trailing a thin column of exhaust. “MMX liftoff!” Tsukuru wrote alongside the footage.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said H3 flight No. 10 lifted off from the Tanegashima Space Center at 4:41 a.m. local time and flew as planned, with the Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) spacecraft separating from the rocket about 71 minutes after launch and entering its intended orbit.

The roughly 4.5-ton probe is designed to land on the Martian moon Phobos, collect surface samples and return them to Earth in 2031. JAXA says it would be the world’s first sample return from the Martian system, with the material expected to shed light on the origin of Mars’s moons and the delivery of water and organic matter to the early planets.