WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 28th July, 2020) US plans to send astronauts to Mars depend on new technology to be tested during the next American rover slated to launch Thursday, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said at a pre-launch press briefing on Monday.
"We have to be able to sustain human life on Mars," Bridenstine said. "How do we use the carbon dioxide atmosphere on Mars and create pure oxygen that we can use for life support?"
The Rover named contains a trial of technology intended to separate oxygen from Mars' atmosphere, which consists overwhelmingly of carbon dioxide, Bridenstine said.
The mission for the first time will use a fully automated guidance system to dodge dangerous obstacles on the ground during the rover's descent, another requirement for human exploration of other worlds, Deputy Project manager Matt Wallace said.
In addition to technology needed for future human missions, the mission includes a helicopter that could some day be used to scout future landing sights in addition to numerous experiments to determine if microbial life existed on Mars, billions of years ago, according to NASA.
One experiment requires the rover will collect and set aside soil and rock samples for a future mission to return the cache to Earth.
Thursday's scheduled launch of the rover - named Perseverance - will begin a 6-month flight to the Red Planet, NASA said.
