NASA’s Perseverance Rover Makes Oxygen on Mars for the First Time
- Florencia Lombardi
- May 14, 2021
- 2 min read
NASA’s Perseverance robot is responsible for many of humanity’s advances on Mars. Its latest accomplishment was converting some of the planet’s atmosphere into oxygen. Composed of 96% carbon dioxide and 0.13% oxygen, Mars’s atmosphere is not suited for human visitors. Therefore, future missions must bring enough oxygen of their own or make it on the surface.
MOXIE (Mars Oxygen In-situ Resource Utilization Experiment) achieved oxygen production on April 20. This box-shaped machine showed a successful electrolysis technology that allows the conversion of the atmosphere into oxygen. During the first run, MOXIE produced 5,4 grams of oxygen in an hour. This is enough to keep an astronaut healthy for 10 minutes. The limit for the potential production is 12 g/hr, the equivalent of what a large tree would produce.
But how is this process possible? MOXIE is designed to separate the atoms of carbon dioxide molecules. After heating them to 800°C, the instrument pressurizes the collected CO2 and uses a cathode and anode to split it into two elements. The result is breathable oxygen that will hopefully allow human missions on Mars.
According to Jim Reuter, who works with NASA, “this is a critical first step at converting carbon dioxide to oxygen on Mars”. He added that: “MOXIE has more work to do, but the results from this technology demonstration are full of promise as we move toward our goal of one day seeing humans on Mars.” Although we have a long way to go, thanks to MOXIE, we are one step closer to visiting the fascinating Red Planet.
Bibliography
Good News Network (2021, April 22nd). NASA’s Rover Makes Oxygen on Mars for the First Time. Good News Network.
Kotary N. & Cody S. (2021, April 25th) NASA’s Mars Perseverance Rover Produces Oxygen on Another Planet for the First Time. SciTech Daily.
NASA/JPL-Caltech. MOXIE [Photograph]. NASA. https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/spacecraft/instruments/moxie/
Neilson, S. (2020, July 30th) NASA's Mars rover is carrying a device that turns CO2 into oxygen, like a tree. It's a crucial step toward future human missions [Photograph]. Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/moxie-robot-nasa-mars-rover-turns-co2-into-oxygen-2020-7
O’Callaghan J. (2021, April 22nd) NASA’s Perseverance Rover Has Made Oxygen On Mars For The First Time Ever. Forbes.
Wall, M. (2021, April 22nd) NASA’s Perseverance Rover Makes Oxygen on Mars for First Time. Scientific American.
Wikipedia Commons (n.d.) Mars Oxygen ISRU Experiment [Photograph]. Wikipedia. https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Oxygen_ISRU_Experiment
Comentarios