NASA’s MOXIE Experiment Triumphs in Generating Oxygen … – The Weather Channel

Perseverance Rover

NASA's oxygen-generating experiment that accompanied the Perseverance rover has successfully completed its mission on Mars and may enable future astronauts landing on the Red Planet to produce oxygen for fuel and breathing, the agency has announced.

Developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a microwave-oven-sized device called MOXIE (Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilisation Experiment), has generated oxygen for the 16th and final time aboard the Perseverance rover.

"MOXIE's impressive performance demonstrates the feasibility of extracting oxygen from Mars' atmospherea potential resource for supplying breathable air or rocket propellant to future astronauts," said NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy in a statement.

"Developing technologies that allow us to utilise resources on the Moon and Mars is critical for building a long-term lunar presence, creating a robust lunar economy, and supporting an initial human exploration campaign to Mars," added Melroy.

MOXIE served as the first-ever demonstration of technology that humans could use to survive on and leave the Red Planet.

It produces molecular oxygen through an electrochemical process that separates one oxygen atom from each molecule of carbon dioxide drawn from Mars' thin atmosphere.

As these gases flow through the system, they are analyzed to verify the purity and quantity of the oxygen produced.

Since Perseverance landed on Mars in 2021, MOXIE has generated a total of 122 grams of oxygen, equivalent to what a small dog breathes in 10 hours.

At its most efficient, MOXIE was able to produce 12 grams of oxygen per hour, twice as much as NASA's original goals for the instrument, and at a purity level of 98 per cent or higher.

On its 16th run, which occurred on August 7, the instrument produced 9.8 grams of oxygen.

An oxygen-producing system could benefit future missions in various ways, with the most significant being as a source of rocket propellant, which would be required in substantial quantities to launch rockets carrying astronauts for their return trip home.

Rather than transporting large quantities of oxygen to Mars, future astronauts could rely on materials they find on the planet's surface to survive.

The next step would involve creating a full-scale system that includes an oxygen generator like MOXIE and a way to liquefy and store the produced oxygen.

The successful completion of MOXIE's mission marks a significant milestone in NASA's efforts to explore and eventually send humans to Mars. It opens up the possibility of producing essential resources on-site, reducing the need for Earth-based resupply missions, and advancing the prospect of human colonization of the Red Planet.

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NASA's MOXIE Experiment Triumphs in Generating Oxygen ... - The Weather Channel