Eduardo Kac

Echoes of a Spiral Drift


Destination: Phobos and then return to Earth
Launch date: NET November-December 2026



Eduardo Kac, Echoes of a Spiral Drift, 2026, Unicode symbols, dimensions variable; space artwork to be launched to Phobos, one of the two moons of Mars, aboard JAXA's MMX spacecraft, integrated into a microchip. Credit: Kac Studio.



Echoes of a Spiral Drift will be installed on the MMX spacecraft (see the certificate below). MMX means Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission. If the MMX ultimate mission ― to land on the Mars' moon Phobos, collect a sample, and return to Earth ― is achieved, this will mark the world's first round-trip sample return mission to the Mars system. If so, Echoes of a Spiral Drift will complete this historic journey, coming back home with the sample return capsule (see photo below) onboard the MMX spacecraft. The outbound and return legs are similar in duration (~1 year each), but the mission includes an extended ~3-year stay at the Martian system for science operations. MMX is expected to return to Earth in 2031.

Exploration module separation shock test. The sample return capsule is the small golden dome on the upper right corner of the image. Photo taken Oct. 20, 2025. Credit: JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency).

JAXA'S MMX certificate issued to Eduardo Kac on January 3, 2026. Credit: JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency).

Eduardo Kac's Echoes of a Spiral Drift will be stored, together with other files, on a microSD memory card embedded in a section of the re-entry capsule. This is the same type of card commonly used in small electronics devices.

This image shows Phobos behind Mt. Sharp in 2014, as seen by the rover Curiosity from the surface of Mars. Credit: NASA / JPL / MSSS / Justin Cowart.

Image of Phobos taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on March 23, 2008. This image was taken from a distance of about 6,800 kilometers (about 4,200 miles). Phobos, the larger and inner moon of Mars, is an irregularly shaped, heavily cratered body (approx. 22 km wide or 13.6 miles) orbiting just 6,000 km (about 3,800 miles) from the surface every 7.7 hours. Phobos orbits Mars three times a day, and is so close to the planet's surface that in some locations on Mars it cannot always be seen. Like Earth's moon, Mars' moons Phobos and Deimos are "tidally locked" on their planet, that is, they always present the same side to the planet they orbit. Credit: NASA.

Simplified diagram showing JAXA's MMX spacecraft flying to Phobos in late 2026 (taking advantage of the Earth-to-Mars transfer alignment during that period). Credit: JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency).

Render visualizing JAXA's MMX spacecraft on the surface of Phobos. Credit: JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency).

JAXA's Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission is scheduled to launch from the Tanegashima Space Center (TNSC) in late 2026 aboard an H3 rocket. Credit: JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency).

Echoes of a Spiral Drift

Eduardo Kac

Echoes of a Spiral Drift  is a space artwork I created to travel to the Mars system, aboard JAXA’s Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission. Scheduled to launch during a narrow window in November–December 2026, the work will journey to Phobos, one of the red planet’s two moons, installed directly on the MMX spacecraft. As I have done previously with Ágora and Monogram, this work extends artistic practice into interplanetary space, using the mission itself as both medium and context.

This work unfolds as a continuous field of Unicode symbols—arrows, circles, stars, interruptions, repetitions—assembled into a visual syntax that feels both ancient and intergalactic. Stripped of alphabetic language, it gestures toward motion, contrast, cycles, and intervals. Meaning emerges obliquely, through rhythm and recurrence rather than instruction, inviting the viewer to read it intuitively, the way one reads constellations or signals: not for literal translation, but for orientation, resonance, and the quiet sense that something is passing, looping, and returning. What it offers is not a conventional narrative but a trajectory, a way of sensing direction and duration through a system of signs that feels at once machine-native and strangely intimate.

The artwork will be stored on a microSD memory card embedded within the spacecraft’s re-entry capsule, alongside other mission files. If MMX succeeds in its ambitious goal—landing on Phobos, collecting samples, and returning them to Earth—Echoes of a Spiral Drift will complete the same historic round-trip in deep space. The outbound and return voyages each last about a year, with an extended three-year stay in the Martian system for scientific operations.

MMX is designed to arrive at Mars in 2027, study Phobos and Deimos through 2030, and return to Earth in 2031, with the sample capsule expected to land in Australia. Led by JAXA and supported by international partners including ESA, NASA, CNES, and DLR, the mission seeks to determine the origin of Mars’s moons and deepen our understanding of the Martian environment.

Japan’s prior successes with Hayabusa and Hayabusa2—culminating in the return of asteroid material to Earth—give MMX a powerful lineage. Within that continuity of exploration, my artwork participates as a quiet companion, tracing a path outward and back, carrying human expression to Phobos and, ultimately, home again.