July 30 from Cape Canaveral to Mars went the rocket with the Rover Perseverance. The Rover will take to the Red planet, a whole set of advanced equipment, including high resolution cameras and the first Martian helicopter.
Many of these tools are designed to explore the possibility of colonization of Mars by humans. For example, Perseverance will bring to the surface the device is the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE), which will attempt to extract oxygen from the local atmosphere.
Oxygen is a serious problem for space missions – it takes a lot of place and it is unlikely colonists will ever be able to deliver on Mars sufficient stock. And that’s not to mention the fact that the oxygen is the oxidant and fuel needed during the flight itself.
This problem is intended to solve MOXIE. It is a small robot that, like a tree collect carbon dioxide, and then electrochemically separates molecules on co (carbon monoxide) and atomic oxygen, which then collects into breathable O2.
The purity obtained in this way oxygen is 99.6 %. MOXIE produces both gas back into the atmosphere, future models will guide O2 tanks in storage. Carbon monoxide in this case is not an issue because the volumes are extremely small, and part of it subsequently unite with atmospheric oxygen, again turning into CO2.
MOXIE will produce oxygen and to measure various parameters of this process throughout the mission Perseverance. And he began this task immediately after the landing of the Rover on Mars 18 Feb 2021.
Source — Business Insider
