With NASA’s Perseverance rover on its way to the Red Planet as of this morning, the Mars Society is pleased to announce that Dr. Michael Hecht, Principal Investigator for the mission’s MOXIE (Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment) project, will be joining us (virtually) during the 23rd Annual International Mars Society Convention, set for October 15-18.
One of the main goals of Perseverance will be to explore the habitability of Mars and its environment, with the intention of laying the groundwork for future human exploration and settlement. MOXIE hopes to demonstrate that astronauts can use the largely carbon dioxide-based atmosphere on Mars to create oxygen, both for breathing purposes and use as rocket fuel.
The MOXIE project was developed in collaboration with researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Haystack Observatory, led by Dr. Hecht, and the school’s Department of Aeronautics & Astronautics, as well as engineers at NASA-JPL. Prior to joining MIT in 2012, Dr. Hecht worked as a senior research scientist at JPL for nearly 30 years.
This year’s virtual Mars Society conference will be free of charge (although donations are welcome). For more details, including how to register and sponsorship opportunities, please click here. Convention updates, including the list of confirmed speakers, are being posted regularly on the Mars Society web site and its social media platforms.
