NASA’s Perseverance just carved another first on Mars, one that could help astronauts pave the way to one day explore the Red Planet.
The rover successfully used its MOXIE instrument to generate oxygen from the thin, carbon dioxide-dominated Mars atmosphere demonstrates for the first time technology that can help both astronauts breathe and propel the rockets that bring them back to Earth.
The MOXIE milestone took place on Tuesday (April 20), just one day after Perseverance first launched another epic Marswag – the first Mars flight of NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter, who drove to the red planet on the belly’s belly.
“This is a critical first step in converting carbon dioxide in Mars to oxygen,” said Jim Reuter, co-administrator of NASA’s Space Technology Directorate. said in a statement today (April 21). “MOXIE has more work to do, but the results of this technology demonstration are full of promise as we move toward our goal of seeing people on Mars one day.”
In photos: NASA’s Mars Perseverance Rover mission to the Red Planet
Make Mars oxygen
The toaster-sized MOXIE (short for “Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment”) produces oxygen from carbon dioxide, which expels carbon monoxide as a waste product. The conversion process takes place at temperatures of about 1,470 degrees Fahrenheit (800 degrees Celsius), and MOXIE is therefore made of heat-tolerant materials and has a thin gold layer to radiate the potentially harmful heat to the outside of Perseverance’s body. .
The MOXIE team warmed up the instrument for two hours yesterday and then let out an hour of oxygen. MOXIE produced 5.4 grams of oxygen during the period, about enough to keep an astronaut breathing for 10 minutes, NASA officials said.
That first attempt did not help MOXIE; it can produce about 10 grams of oxygen per hour. The instrument could eventually reach such levels, as the team plans to run another nine runs in the course of one March year (approximately 687 Earth Days).
These trials will be grouped into three phases, NASA officials said. The first phase is the check-out and characterization of the instrument, and the second will assess the performance of MOXIE in different atmospheric conditions. During the third and final phase, “we will print the envelope,” Michael Hecht, chief investigator of MOXIE, said in the same statement.
If you push the envelope, it will probably be testing new ways of working or adding ‘new wrinkles, like a run where we compare comparisons to three or more different temperatures,’ adds Hecht, who is based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology see Haystack Observatory, by.
MOXIE and humanity’s future on Mars
MOXIE itself cannot produce enough oxygen to make a difference for future exploration efforts. For example, launching four astronauts from the Martian surface would probably require about 15,000 pounds. (7,000 kilograms) rocket fuel and 55,000 lbs. (25,000 kg) of oxygen, NASA officials said. (Rocket propellant consists of fuel and an oxidizing agent that helps burn it.)
But much larger MOXIE successors could potentially be major reconnaissance activities, enabling Mars astronauts to ‘live off the land“Instead of relying on expensive and infrequent supplies of the earth, agencies have said.
Perseverance hit the 28-kilometer-wide (45-kilometer) Jezero crater on February 18, with the task of searching for signs of antiquity. March life and the collection of samples for future return to Earth. The rover will be able to fully focus on the core work in about two weeks, when Ingenuity’s month-long flight window comes to an end.
And MOXIE will continue to do his thing in the background, pumping every now and then a bit of smoke clouds of carbon monoxide into the dusty Mars sky to animate the six-wheeled robot’s considerable labor.
Mike Wall is the author of “Out there“(Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.