NASA's production of artificial oxygen on Mars that can breathe

 

Perseverance Rover: NASA's production of artificial oxygen on Mars that can breathe

A device from NASA's Perseverance Rover on Mars has created oxygen from carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere.

This is the second successful demonstration of Rover technology on this mission. Earlier on Monday, the mission successfully flew a small helicopter over Mars.

Oxygen was created by a device as large as a toaster on a rover. The device's name is Moxie, which is actually an English acronym for Mars Oxygen In Sessile Resource Utilization Experiment.

The device produced five grams of gas, enough for an astronaut on Mars to breathe for 10 minutes.

NASA believes that future human missions could carry a larger version of Moxie to the Red Planet, so that the oxygen needed to sustain the mission does not have to be carried off Earth.

Oxygen (O₂) is an essential component of chemistry that helps a rocket launch. Burning fuel in the presence of an oxidizer gives the rocket the power it needs to fly, which can be obtained from simple oxygen.

The level of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the atmosphere of Mars is 96%. Oxygen is only 0.13%. The rate of oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere is 21%.

Moxy is equipped for isolating oxygen particles from carbon dioxide (CO₂), which is comprised of one carbon atom and two oxygen atoms. The waste from this process is carbon monoxide, which is released into the atmosphere of Mars.

The NASA team working on the device is operating it in a variety of ways to determine how effective it is.the device is expected to produce 10 grams of O₂ oxygen per hour. Trudeau Courts, director of technology at NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate, said: This will help them to live in what is called in-situ resource utilization. He added that "it is taking regulth (a solid-filled substance or dust that has ascended to the surface of a planet), the substance you find on Earth, and passes it through a preparing plant." It becomes like a huge structure, or converts carbon dioxide, which is a huge piece of the air, into oxygen. This process allows us to convert these abundant substances into usable substances: propellants, the air needed to breathe, or water mixed with hydrogen.

NASA will try to fly its Ingenuity  helicopter again on Thursday.

This small helicopter made history this week by completing a controlled flight for the first time in any other world.

For its second flight, the drone will lift itself up to five meters above the surface of Mars and travel up to two meters. It will turn around and take pictures and then return and land again at the place from which it flew.