Perseverance Creates OXYGEN on The Surface of Mars (Mars Oxygen ISRU Experiment)

 

we're one step closer to sending a  manned mission to mars  why because now we know we can make  breathable air for the astronauts that  will be going there  welcome to fact nominal and we're  bringing you some exciting news in  perseverance creates oxygen on the  surface of  mars an important mission directive for  the mars perseverance rover may have  flown under the radar and gone unnoticed  by the public  nasa has been banking on the success of  their trial moxie unit and seeing  just what it's capable of for those who  don't know  moxie is short for mars oxygen in situ  resource utilization equipment quite the  mouthful  in short it's a little toaster-sized box  attached to the front right-hand side of  the perseverance rover  that should be able to make breathable  air from the thin atmosphere of mars  now the odds were always stacked against  us as it stands  the density of the martian atmosphere is  only one percent that of earth  to top it all off here on our blue  planet we have air that is a mix of  78 nitrogen 21 oxygen  with a mix of other gases including  0.038 carbon dioxide  making up the 1 remainder there's plenty  of oxygen to go around at home  but on mars it's a different story on  the red planet the air is made up of 95  carbon dioxide 2.6 nitrogen  1.9 argon and only 0.16  oxygen when you put all these figures  together a picture begins to emerge  that super thin one percent martian  atmosphere only has a very very small  amount of oxygen in it  and we need that as human beings to  survive even more complex is  the fact that the volume of air on mars  varies by up to 30 percent between its  own winter and summer  so where does the moxie unit fit into  all this well  the moxie makes oxygen the same way that  a tree does  it inhales carbon dioxide and exhales  oxygen  it uses a process called solid oxide  electrolysis  powered by solar panels on top of the  perseverance rover  the martian atmosphere is heated to 1470  degrees  fahrenheit which is the catalyst to  split the relatively abundant carbon  dioxide co2  into unbound oxygen molecules o  and carbon monoxide co from there the  single oxygen atoms pair up to form a  covalent  bond o2 which is the gas we need to  breathe  the initial goal was to produce 98  purity oxygen at a rate of between 6 and  10 grams per hour  and repeat the process 10 times over a  range of  environmental conditions day night clear  skies and during a dust storm  the first trial was just a warm-up and  even running at only a fraction of full  capacity  the moxie unit was able to produce 5.6  grams of oxygen  which is 10 minutes worth of survival in  a spacesuit  this is huge future moxie units will be  100 times larger than this prototype  oxygen generated on mars could supply  more than three-quarters of the  propellant explorers need while on the  planet  to launch back off mars 55 tons of  oxygen fuel  is needed to supplement the 15 tons of  rocket fuel  which is the weight of an empty space  shuttle more importantly  this much larger unit could allow  astronauts to effectively live  off the land and pull more than enough  oxygen out of the surrounding atmosphere  to survive for an extended period on the  red planet  resupply spacecraft missions sent from  earth  would be extremely costly and would  require an enormous amount of resources  it's cheaper and easier to just make the  oxygen from scratch  water could be also produced by  combining the harvested oxygen  with on-board hydrogen gas by using a  flame  as an ignition source it's exactly like  the process used in the hollywood film  the martian  only it's not a jerry-rigged homemade  still that has a chance to explode  do you think we'll ever have the  technology to ferroform mars  let us know in the comments below