NASA "perseverance" completes Mars oxygen production mission, paving the way for future astronauts to breathe and spacecraft fuel.

Thanks to CTOnews.com netizens, new soft media friends 2xrpri, Alejandro86 for the delivery of clues! CTOnews.com, September 10 (Xinhua)-- the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) "perseverance" rover this week completed an experiment on the utilization of in-situ Martian oxygen resources codenamed "MOXIE". The project marks that astronauts going to Mars in the future will be able to use the resources on Mars to provide the necessary oxygen for fuel and human breathing.

The official NASA JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) also shared the news on platform X:

Pave the way for future Mars explorers!

MOXIE, an experimental technology aboard NASA Spirit, has completed the task of extracting oxygen from the Martian atmosphere, a test that will help provide future astronauts with breathable air or atmospheric propellant.

Since its successful landing on Mars in 2021, MOXIE has completed 16 trials, producing a total of 122g of oxygen, equivalent to 10 hours of breathing by a puppy, according to NASA's official news release. At the highest efficiency, MOXIE can produce 12 grams of oxygen per hour-double the initial target set by NASA, and the oxygen can be more than 98 per cent pure.

During its 16th operation on August 7, MOXIE produced 9.8g of oxygen, successfully fulfilled all the technical requirements and operated a full year of Mars under various conditions (CTOnews.com Note: Mars year refers to the cycle of Mars revolution, totaling 687 days. In addition, a Martian year consists of 22 months, with a total of 668.59 Martian days. The rotation period of Mars is 24 hours and 37 minutes.

This will be MOXIE's last oxygen-making mission, and its success has far exceeded the expectations of the engineers who made it.

Referenc

NASA's Oxygen-Generating Experiment MOXIE Completes Mars Mission