The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has teamed up with national broadcaster NHK on a new project that is literally out of this world. As part of the mission called Martian Moons Exploration (MMX), the agency plans to equip a space probe with an 8K camera, giving humanity a more detailed view of Mars (also known as the Red Planet) and its moons than we've ever seen before.
The goal of the MMX mission is to elucidate the origin of the moons (Phobos and Deimos) and the evolutionary process of the Martian system. All this will be done in orbit around the red planet and by observing both moons, before eventually landing on Phobos and collecting sand, which will be sent back to Earth.
Built-in 8K and 4K cameras will capture every detail in high-resolution photos. But the question remains: how?
While equipping a space probe with an 8K camera is no big deal, no one has done it yet because the files are simply too large. The distance between Earth and Mars ranges from a minimum of 33.9 million miles, up to 250 million miles—from that distance, sending a few megabytes is a technological marvel.
During the mission, the probe will only send back a few images, which will be used mainly for orientation of the spacecraft. Then, after the collection of photos and sand from Phobos is complete, full-resolution videos will be sent back to Earth in a specialized “return capsule.”
Unfortunately, that means we won't be seeing 8K images of Mars or its moons anytime soon. Not only is the mission itself not set to launch until 2024 – arriving on the Red Planet in 2025 – but it will take four years for the capsule to return to Earth.
According to the overview of the above mission, published by Parabolic Arc, the capsule will leave Mars in 2028 and will finally arrive on Earth around September 2029, meaning we will see this material in about ten years.
The long wait may be necessary. By 2029, most of us may actually have TVs, monitors, and graphics cards capable of displaying 8K footage.
