This is the first time that scientists have created oxygen on the chest of Mars.
Perseverance is achieving one milestone after another on the chest of Mars. History is being made. On April 20, NASA announced the production of oxygen. As a result, humans have a history of producing oxygen on the first planet outside of Earth.
Earlier, Perseverance landed on the chest of Mars on February 18. Scientists sent a device called Moxi (The Mars Oxygen In-situ Resource Utilization Experiment) to Mars with perseverance. This device weighing 16.1 kg was mounted on the right side in front of the Perseverance. The purpose is to produce oxygen using carbon-di-oxide from Mars. That possibility has now become a reality.
The Martian atmosphere contains 98 percent carbon dioxide. This carbon dioxide has been chosen to make oxygen. Carbon dioxide contains one carbon and two oxygen atoms. MOXIE releases oxygen from that CO2 and releases the remaining carbon monoxide into the atmosphere of Mars.
Thus, the device made 5 grams of oxygen for the first time on April 20. With this amount of oxygen, an astronaut can breathe on Mars for about 10 minutes. Moxi, however, will not produce oxygen at this rate. That was the first step. NASA researchers say that Moxie is designed to produce 10 grams of oxygen per hour in the future.
The question is, why is it important to produce oxygen on Mars? There are several reasons for this. First, humans will be able to use this oxygen when they reach Mars in the future. Then there will be no need to pull extra oxygen from the earth.
Second, this oxygen can be used as fuel for rockets. Using the technology we have so far, we can only reach Mars. You can't come back to earth from there. Therefore, in the future, it will be possible to return to Earth using this oxygen as fuel.
Third, in the future, it will be possible to take fuel from Mars to a farther planet. Considering these aspects, oxygen production on Mars is a new milestone.
Let's see what would happen if oxygen was not produced on Mars. Michael Hect, a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion, has some ideas on this. A rocket needs to have more oxygen than the weight of the rocket for fuel. As such, if four astronauts want to go to Mars in the future, they will need a total of 15,000 pounds (8 metric tons) of fuel and 55,000 pounds (25 metric tons) of oxygen. Oxygen will also be needed while on Mars.
In that case, if four astronauts stay on Mars for a year, they will need one metric ton of oxygen. Moreover, it is very difficult and expensive to go to Mars with 25 metric tons of oxygen from the earth. So if it is possible to produce one metric ton or more of oxygen in the future by improving Moxi, that amount of oxygen will no longer have to be pulled from the earth. It will also be possible to reduce the cost of going to Mars.
The surface of Mars requires a temperature of about 600 degrees Celsius (about 1462 degrees Fahrenheit) to produce oxygen from carbon dioxide. This means that the moxie device has the ability to withstand this amount of temperature. This device uses a hybrid of 3D printed nickel. As a result, there is no problem with high temperatures. The device was designed in the laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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