Japan’s Phobos Sample Return: A Launch, Then Five Years of Work — October 19, 2026

Japan's MMX mission is scheduled to launch toward Phobos, where it aims to collect material and return it to Earth in 2031. The episode also covers a reported close approach between Russian and commercial satellites and Elon Musk's pledge of SpaceX shares to American children. Russian Satellite Kosmos-2612 Closes to Within 26 Meters of ICEYE-X36 During Pursuit — Mіlіtarnyi Musk pledges 1 SpaceX share for every child in America — Axios reporting via Yahoo Finance Returning the first samples from a Martian moon: Inside the science of Japan's bold MMX mission to Mars — Space.com Japan launching bold sample-return mission to Mars moon Phobos today: Watch it live — Space.com Chapters 00:00 Today's headlines 00:38 Kosmos-2612 approached ICEYE-X36 02:31 Musk's SpaceX share pledge for every kid 03:50 Japan's MMX mission to study Phobos 05:01 Japan's MMX mission to return Phobos sample 08:33 Hype Check on Japan's MMX mission Source links @elonmusk on X @JAXA_jp on X Space Stakes is an AI-voiced podcast, built and run by a real person. Nothing in this episode is financial advice. Follow Space Stakes: subscribe on YouTube · Apple Podcasts · Spotify More from Brian Lampert: Quickly Quantum , the daily quantum computing briefing, and Concrete Compute , the daily AI infrastructure briefing. Transcripts and every episode: space-stakes.kngoworld.chatgpt.site .