MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011
Contact at JPL: Mary Hardin (818) 354-0344
Contact at JSC: Kelly Humphries (281) 483-5111
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEMarch 25, 1999
EXPERIMENT LAYS GROUNDWORK FOR 'LIVING OFF THE LAND' ON MARS
NASA engineers have succeeded in a realm often left to
alchemists and magicians -- creating something valuable "out of
thin air." In this case, the thin air was a simulated Martian
atmosphere, and the valuable commodity was oxygen.
"The concept is to use the resources on Mars to reduce
the amount of material that needs to accompany a human mission
... to 'live off the land,' " said David Kaplan, principal
investigator of the Exploration Office at NASA's Johnson Space
Center, Houston, Texas. "Producing oxygen using materials readily
available on Mars would be an important step toward reducing the
costs and risks of an eventual human mission to Mars."
This week's demonstration is an initial test of
technology that will be aboard the Mars Surveyor 2001 Lander,
scheduled to launch April 10, 2001, and land on Mars on January
22, 2002. Called the Mars In-Situ Propellant Production
Precursor, the experiment will test the feasibility of using the
thin Martian atmosphere to produce oxygen for breathing air and
propellants. Propellants created on Mars could eventually be used
to send samples and astronauts back to Earth.
"The oxygen production technology being tested this
week is based on sound, straightforward chemistry," said Jerry
Sanders of Johnson's Propulsion and Fluid Systems Branch.
The primary test involves an experimental device inside
a Mars environment chamber that selectively absorbs carbon
dioxide from a simulated Martian atmosphere -- called "Mars mix"
-- and converts it to oxygen. This technology also may be used to
extract pure oxygen from Earth air for home, medical and military
The atmosphere inside the experiment chamber simulates
Martian temperatures and atmospheric pressures. The "Mars mix" is
95 percent carbon dioxide, thin (almost 150 times thinner than
Earth's atmosphere) and cold (-75 degrees Centigrade, -105
degrees Fahrenheit) like a typical Martian night.
The mix provides the feedstock for the chemical
reaction. A wafer-thin, solid-oxide ceramic disk made of
zirconia, about the size of a small cookie, is sandwiched between
two platinum electrodes and heated to 750 degrees Centigrade
(1,380 degrees Fahrenheit). When carbon dioxide is fed to this
unit, the zirconia cell "cracks" the carbon dioxide into carbon
monoxide and oxygen. Only the oxygen can penetrate through to the
other side of the disk; the carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide
gases are stopped in their tracks.
The Mars Surveyor 2001 Lander is expected to provide
essential insights into how to conduct successful, cost-effective
human missions to Mars. The lander's primary science goal is to
explore the mineralogy of the landing site, near the Martian
equator, by taking visible and infrared pictures of the
surrounding terrain and deploying a rover similar to Mars
Pathfinder's Sojourner. Other equipment will analyze the Martian
soil and surface radiation.
The Mars In-Situ Propellant Production Precursor
demonstration is part of Johnson's continuing effort to identify
solutions to the challenges facing future human explorers of
other worlds. The Johnson Space Center is NASA's lead center for
the Human Exploration and Development of Space enterprise.
Mars Surveyor 2001 is part of the Mars Surveyor
Program, a long-term program of Mars exploration managed by the
Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA's Office of Space Science,
Washington, D.C. The laboratory is a division of the California
Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA.
For more information about the Mars Surveyor 2001 mission,