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A new approach to produce oxygen from the Martian atmosphere is proposed, linking two emerging technologies: non-thermal plasmas and ion-conducting membranes. Microwave plasma sources lead to high conversion rates and enable plasma ignition with light and compact solid-state generators. The unique pressure and temperature conditions on Mars are favourable for plasma CO2 decomposition, and the experiments and simulations carried out anticipate a competitive oxygen production per mass and volume of hardware in a future prototype.

Achievements and status: ​

Background and justification:

In 50 years of Space Exploration, the total distance covered by rovers on Mars and the Moon is about 200km, an average of 4km per year. Future exploration rovers are expected to travel one or two orders of magnitude more.This requires designing rovers that are intrinsically faster than what has been built so far.

Future human space exploration, including missions to the Moon and beyond, will require a paradigm shift in the current approach to in-flight exercise countermeasures, particularly when it comes to exercise devices (e.g. CEVIS, T2, ARED to name a few). Exploration vehicles will be significantly smaller, requiring exercise hardware to be smaller, lighter and less complex than current devices, and ideally multi-functional, capable of stressing the musculoskeletal (MSK) system, the cardiovascular (CV) system and other associated system (e.g. neuro-vestibular - NV).

The LUnar Geology Orbiter (LUGO) is a scientific and exploratory mission to study the thermal evolution of the Moon by characterizing Irregular Mare Patches, as well as lunar lava tubes. This will be accomplished by four payloads, a ground penetrating radar, a hyperspectral camera, LiDAR and narrow angle camera, which will produce images at a greater resolution than currently available. The scientific study will provide confirmation or refutation of current knowledge about the thermal evolution of the Moon.

The main objective of this activity was to design and develop an innovative virtual lab for Mars experiments, where AI methods are used to improve orbital imagery resolution, as well to obtain terrain features based on local images from rovers. Two different methods were used to recreate the virtual environment. The first one was dedicated to process low resolution images from orbital information. The main contribution in this sense was the use of AI to increase the resolution of these images.

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