Mars 2020 Mission “How are we preparing for future human exploration of Mars”

#Mars #2020 #Mission

The most recent Mars 2020 mission Perseverance rover is the largest, heaviest and most sophisticated NASA rover, and it’s currently on its way to the Red Planet. Perseverance builds on all the knowledge of the past rovers from Sojourner to Curiosity, taking the next step of discovering the key astrobiology question, “Are there any signs that life once existed on Mars?”. Landing on Jezero Crater on February 18, 2021, Perseverance will study signs of past microbial life, collect data about Mars’s climate and geology, and will pave the way for future human exploration on Mars. This rover is carrying along 7 science instruments, including the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE). MOXIE was developed by MIT and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to demonstrate, for the first time, In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) on another planet by extracting O2 from CO2 in the Martian atmosphere using solid oxide electrolysis (SOE).