AGI – Perseverance, the rover sent by Nasa its Mars, managed to extract five grams of oxygen from the carbon dioxide of the red planet’s atmosphere through electrolysis. This is another revolutionary milestone after the first controlled flight to another planet made last Monday since Ingenuity, the small helicopter sent to Mars together with Perseverance, whose filming was released in these hours.
Il successo del Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource-Utilization Experiment (Moxie) has disruptive implications for future space missions. The new technology could not only allow astronauts sent to another celestial body to produce breathable air but also to manufacture fuel on site to return to Earth.
Moxie, the first experimental extraction of natural resources from the environment of another planet for possible direct human use, will allow future missions from other planets to “live off what the territory offers”, he explained. Trudy kortes, director of technology demonstrations at NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate.
The US space agency estimates that seven tons of rocket fuel and 25 tons of oxygen are needed to send four astronauts to Mars. A one-tonne oxygen conversion machine on the Red Planet would therefore be a much more practical solution than transporting that amount of oxygen, he explained. Michael Hetch, one of the researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) who worked on the Moxie project.
At the moment Moxie can produce 10 grams of oxygen per hour but the scientists intend to achieve at least nine times more quantity under different conditions and speeds within two years.
© Nasa
Ingenuity’s flight to Mars
The second flight of Ingenuity also succeeded
Moxie’s success isn’t the only good news coming from the red planet right now. In fact, the second Martian flight of Ingenuity was also perfectly successful. After making history last Monday, with the first controlled flight to another planet, the drone hovered for 50 seconds at a height of 5 meters, 11 seconds and 2 meters higher than in the April 19 test. Igenuity also managed to move sideways, and not just from top to bottom.
NASA has also published an image of the shadow cast by Ingenuity on the Martian soil during the second flight and part of the footage of the first flight taken by Perseverance, showing the aircraft taking off and landing.
Getting comfy with my cameras and bringing my subject into sharp focus. Of course, getting the shot is always easier when your subject nails their mark. Here are zoomed-in views of the #MarsHelicopter‘s takeoff and landing on flight #1. Getting set up for flight #2. pic.twitter.com/2lR0sU5hOO
– NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) April 22, 2021
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