 The company planned to use a "mothership", which would be propelled by an ion engine, releasing a lander to the surface of Phobos.The lander would perform some tests and experiments, gather samples in a capsule, then return to the mothership and head back to Earth where the samples would be jettisoned for recovery on the surface.In 2007, the Canadian Space Agency funded a study by Optech and the Mars Institute for an unmanned mission to Phobos known as "Phobos Reconnaissance and International Mars Exploration" (PRIME).