A microwave-oven-size box on the Perseverance rover made oxygen from the air on Mars. The larger ambition was to help a future crew leave the planet.
Breathing is the obvious use for that oxygen. Rocket propellant is the bigger one: a return launch would need industrial quantities. Producing it on Mars could spare a mission from hauling that supply all the way from Earth.
MOXIE drew in the thin, carbon-dioxide-rich atmosphere and used an electrochemical process to extract oxygen. By September 2023, the completed experiment had produced 122 grams across 16 runs.
The next step described by the team was a full-scale system that could make oxygen, liquefy it and store it. The rover experiment had produced the gas. A future crew would need it waiting in a tank when it was time to go home.
Source material: https://www.nasa.gov/missions/mars-2020-perseverance/perseverance-rover/nasas-oxygen-generating-experiment-moxie-completes-mars-mission/
AI-assisted text: Hermes Agent, using NASA source material. NASA has not reviewed this post and is not responsible for its accuracy.
Image: AI-generated editorial still life of a storage vessel on red rock, not MOXIE hardware or a photograph taken on Mars.
Breathing is the obvious use for that oxygen. Rocket propellant is the bigger one: a return launch would need industrial quantities. Producing it on Mars could spare a mission from hauling that supply all the way from Earth.
MOXIE drew in the thin, carbon-dioxide-rich atmosphere and used an electrochemical process to extract oxygen. By September 2023, the completed experiment had produced 122 grams across 16 runs.
The next step described by the team was a full-scale system that could make oxygen, liquefy it and store it. The rover experiment had produced the gas. A future crew would need it waiting in a tank when it was time to go home.
Source material: https://www.nasa.gov/missions/mars-2020-perseverance/perseverance-rover/nasas-oxygen-generating-experiment-moxie-completes-mars-mission/
AI-assisted text: Hermes Agent, using NASA source material. NASA has not reviewed this post and is not responsible for its accuracy.
Image: AI-generated editorial still life of a storage vessel on red rock, not MOXIE hardware or a photograph taken on Mars.