Suara.com – NASA’s new explorer is named Perseverance, which landed on the surface Mars on February 18 again to make new history by making oxygen on Mars for the first time.
Using instruments MOXIE, Perseverance produces oxygen from the thin, carbon dioxide-dominated atmosphere of Mars.
This success demonstrates technology that can help astronauts breathe and propel the rockets that carry astronauts back to Earth.
The MOXIE achievement came on Tuesday (20/4/2021), just one day after Perseverance oversaw the first helicopter flight on Mars.
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“This is the first important step in converting carbon dioxide to oxygen on Mars,” said Jim Reuter, associate administrator of NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate.
In his opinion, MOXIE has more work to do, but the results of this technology demonstration promise NASA is moving closer to sending crewed missions to Mars.
MOXIE (short for Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment) is the size of a toaster, producing oxygen from carbon dioxide, releasing carbon monoxide as a waste product.
The conversion process takes place at a temperature of about 800 degrees Celsius, so the instrument is made of heat-resistant material and has a thin gold layer to keep potentially damaging heat from spreading to the Perseverance.
On the day of the test, the MOXIE team warmed the instruments for two hours and released oxygen for one hour.
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Reporting from Space.com, Friday (23/4/2021), MOXIE produces 5.4 grams of oxygen during that time. That’s enough to make astronauts breathe easily for 10 minutes.
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