NASA’s MOXIE wraps up oxygen production on Mars
MOXIE is installed on the Perseverance rover in 2019. The device produced oxygen 16 times, testing a key technology for future human missions to Mars. Credit: NASA
NASA’s microwave-sized oxygen-generating MOXIE technology demonstrator has completed its mission on Mars.
MOXIE stands for Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment. It was sent to the Red Planet aboard NASA’s robotic Perseverance rover and was designed to demonstrate the feasibility of producing oxygen on Mars by extracting it from the planet’s carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere, according to NASA
Since arriving on Mars in February 2021, MOXIE has generated oxygen 16 times, producing a total of 122 grams of oxygen, which NASA says is about what a small dog breathes in 10 hours. The space agency said at its peak, the device produced 12 grams of oxygen an hour with 98% purity or better. Its last use on Aug. 7 produced 9.8 grams of oxygen. According to NASA, MOXIE met or exceeded all of its technical goals.
“We’re proud to have supported a breakthrough technology like MOXIE that could turn local resources into useful products for future exploration missions,” Trudy Kortes, director of technology demonstrations at NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said in an agency statement. “By proving this technology in real-world conditions, we’ve come one step closer to a future in which astronauts ‘live off the land’ on the Red Planet.”
This was the first time oxygen had been produced by a spacecraft on Mars. NASA said MOXIE produces oxygen via an electrochemical process that separates one oxygen atom from each molecule of carbon dioxide pumped in from the Martian atmosphere.
This technology is expected to be used during future human missions to the Red Planet in order to reduce the amount of consumables astronauts will have to bring with them on a multi-year flight. Oxygen can be used for breathing, as well as the oxidizer component of rocket propellent for an Earth return vehicle.
“MOXIE has clearly served as inspiration to the ISRU community,” said the instrument’s principal investigator, Michael Hecht of MIT. “It showed NASA is willing to invest in these kinds of future technologies. And it has been a flagship that has influenced the exciting industry of space resources.”
The Perseverance rover’s microphone captured this audio of the MOXIE device working on Mars on May 27, 2021. Credit: NASA
Derek Richardson
Derek Richardson has a degree in mass media, with an emphasis in contemporary journalism, from Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas. While at Washburn, he was the managing editor of the student run newspaper, the Washburn Review. He also has a website about human spaceflight called Orbital Velocity. You can find him on twitter @TheSpaceWriter.
