NASA’s Mars probe is carrying equipment that turns CO2 into oxygen, just like a tree!

Tram Ho

Last weekend, NASA’s Perseverance Mars probe took off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, bringing with it the most advanced technology including high-quality cameras and the first man-made “interplanetary” helicopter. .

Tàu thăm dò Sao Hỏa của NASA mang theo thiết bị biến CO2 thành khí Oxy, y như 1 cái cây vậy! - Ảnh 1.

Illustration Perseverance and interplanetary helicopter on Mars.

On Perseverance there are also a number of other tools that serve as a stepping stone for direct human expeditions. Among them, the most important is the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment, MOXIE; This will be an effort to create oxygen in the atmosphere, which accounts for less than 0.2% of the O2.

Oxygen is always a bulky item on a space trip: it plays a vital role in astronauts’ survival but is very space-consuming, not to mention that oxygen is flammable. Without clever calculations of furniture, oxygen on the journey to Mars is not enough for a round trip.

Tàu thăm dò Sao Hỏa của NASA mang theo thiết bị biến CO2 thành khí Oxy, y như 1 cái cây vậy! - Ảnh 2.

MOXIE will be the first solution: it acts as a machine-designed machine specifically for the Martian atmosphere, taking into carbon dioxide and then through electrochemical processes that divide the CO2 molecule into oxygen (O) and carbon monoxide (CO), then combines the oxygen atoms into O2.

After analyzing the air quality and trying to achieve 99.6% pure O2, it will release O2 and CO back into the atmosphere. MOXIE is just a “tiny” version of the NASA device that wants to go to Mars in the 30s of this century, and the future device will store oxygen for astronauts to use, rather than emitting gas. book.

According to Michael Hecht, an expert working on the MOXIE project, there is no need to worry about CO toxins. This gas will not have much effect on the atmosphere of Mars. ” If you release carbon monoxide into the Martian atmosphere, it will eventually combine with the meager amount of oxygen and turn it into carbon dioxide, ” says Hecht.

Tàu thăm dò Sao Hỏa của NASA mang theo thiết bị biến CO2 thành khí Oxy, y như 1 cái cây vậy! - Ảnh 3.

Researchers are putting MOXIE into Perseverance.

Because MOXIE is an experiment aimed at proving that a larger version is operable, it also does not produce significant amounts of oxygen; According to calculations, the optimal capacity of MOXIE is 10 grams of oxygen / hour, equivalent to the amount of oxygen in 33 liters of Earth’s air. For ease of comparison: one person we will need about 550 liters of oxygen / day.

MOXIE will be officially operational as soon as Perseverance lands on Mars’ surface on February 18, 2021.

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Source : Genk