Seeing Red: Retrieving Rocks from Mars and Phobos

Mars Sample Return (MSR) missions have been a priority for the planetary community for decades. The NASA Perseverance rover mission is collecting diverse samples from Mars for potential return to Earth, whereas the JAXA Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission will bring back samples from Phobos, the largest of Mars' two moons. High-resolution analyses of these samples in Earth-based laboratories will enable us to answer key questions that current martian data (meteorites, rovers, and orbiters) are unable to fully address. MSR results will better inform our understanding of the geological and planetary evolution of the red planet, the possibility of habitability and life on Mars, the potential for human exploration, and the formation of its moons and the martian system.