TOKYO, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Japan's Committee on National Space Policy has decided to delay the country's planned launch of a Martian moon probe by two years to 2026.

The delay was included in a draft revision of a project timetable in the country's space basic plan, after gaining broad approval by the committee under the Cabinet Office on Tuesday.

It came after the failed launch of the first vehicle of the H3 rocket in March this year.

In the delayed mission, named Martian Moons eXploration or MMX, to explore the red planet's two moons of Phobos and Deimos, Japan plans to use the probe to bring back samples from Phobos.

The spacecraft was to be launched on an H3 rocket in 2024, arrive near Mars in fiscal 2025 and return to Earth in fiscal 2029.

The next opportunity good for the launch would be in 2026 as Mars approaches Earth about every two years. Therefore, samples would be returned to Earth in fiscal 2031.

Other missions will also be delayed by about a year, including the launch of the new unmanned resupply vehicle HTV-X to deliver goods to the International Space Station and the LUPEX project to land a probe near the lunar south pole in cooperation with India, according to local media outlets.

The revised timetable will be adopted at a meeting of the Strategic Headquarters for National Space Policy later this month.

On the morning of March 7, Japan's new flagship H3 rocket blasted off from the Tanegashima Space Center launch site in Kagoshima Prefecture, southwestern Japan as scheduled, but was ordered to self-destruct minutes later because the second-stage engine failed to ignite.

The H3 rocket, considered a successor to the H2A rocket, its previous mainstay launch vehicle, was carrying a land observation satellite designed to assist in disaster management situations. Enditem

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