Oxygen is made by rover on Mars
NASA’s Perseverance rover has turned carbon dioxide into oxygen, laying the foundation for technologies that could one day create propellant needed to launch rockets off the surface of Mars and back to Earth.
Mars’ atmosphere is 96 percent carbon dioxide. And on Tuesday, a toaster-sized technology demonstration separated oxygen atoms from these carbon dioxide molecules to make about 5 grams of oxygen. That’s 10 minutes’ worth of breathable oxygen for an astronaut.
It’s not as fun as turning water into wine, but it would be more useful to future explorers.
“The results from this technology demonstration are full of promise as we move toward our goal of one day seeing humans on
Mars,” Jim Reuter, associate administrator for NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, said in a news release. “Oxygen isn’t just the stuff we breathe. Rocket propellant depends on oxygen, and future explorers will depend on producing propellant on Mars to make the trip home.”
Propellant requires a fuel and an oxidizer. The fuel is, essentially, something to burn. The oxidizer is what makes it burn.
Getting four astronauts off the surface of Mars so they can return home would require about 15,000 pounds (7 metric tons) of rocket fuel and 55,000 pounds (25 metric tons) of oxygen, NASA said. Rather than carrying 25 metric tons of oxygen to Mars, it would be easier to pack a 1-ton device, a descendant of the technology demonstration being tested on Perseverance, that would turn carbon dioxide into oxygen.
The Perseverance rover’s main mission is to search Mars for signs of past life, but it landed on the Red Planet with a variety of scientific payloads and technology demonstrations. In addition to the carbon dioxide-to-oxygen device, a 4pound helicopter has taken two powered, controlled flights.