Once, after flying a helicopter to another planet, the NASA Perseverance Rover team achieved another great success on Mars: a mobile science laboratory was able to extract oxygen from the Martian atmosphere, which is equivalent to about 96% of carbon dioxide. . A roaster-sized experimental device called the “Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment,” called Moxie, managed to separate oxygen atoms from carbon dioxide molecules to produce oxygen on Tuesday.
Jim Reuter, Assistant Administrator of NASA’s Office of Space Technology, said in a statement: “This is an important first step in the conversion of carbon dioxide to oxygen on Mars.” “MOXIE still has a lot of work to do, but this technology demonstrates The results are obvious. There is hope, because we are getting closer to the goal of seeing humans on Mars one day.
Reuters added that similar technologies can be used to create rocket fuel and breathable air for future researchers. For a person, this requires about 5 grams of oxygen, or about 10 minutes of breathable oxygen. The device can produce up to 10 grams of oxygen per hour, so you don’t want to rely on it to survive.
However, NASA hopes it can be more Effectively use its successor to produce large amounts of oxygen during his lifetime. Moxies principal researcher Michael Hecht said that Moxie plans to extract at least nine times as much oxygen during the first two years of the rover’s trip. The team will “show new wrinkles, just It’s like a comparative operation at three or more different temperatures.”He added that they “will try to experiment under different conditions, time of day and season.
Well, let’s move on. Conclusion: When astronauts breathe local oxygen on Mars for the first time, they can thank this A golden toaster-sized device.
