Japan has launched a spacecraft on a five-year mission to explore Mars’ two moons and bring back samples from Phobos, the larger of the pair.

A spacecraft is on its way to Mars’ moon Phobos to collect samples that could shed light on the origins of our solar system. WSJ’s Jason Douglas was at the launch in southwestern Japan.

Japan launched an uncrewed spacecraft toward the Martian moon Phobos on Tuesday (October 20) on a mission intended to become the first to collect samples from the small rocky body and return them to Earth for analysis.

NASA contributed to this first-of-its-kind mission that may help us understand how our solar system formed.