MOXIE is the first experiment to obtain oxygen from the atmosphere of a planet other than Earth. This is happening on Mars, and NASA hopes that in the future it will be able to produce in situ the oxygen needed for rocket engines that will take off from the surface of Mars in the future.

The Perseverance rover arrived on the surface of Mars on February 18, 2021, and in addition to the scientific instruments on board that NASA hopes to find traces of life in the distant past or even the present day of the nearby planet, the rover was also equipped with a small module to generate oxygen from the planet’s carbon-rich atmosphere gas (95%). MOXIE (Mars Oxygen ISRU Experiment), as the experiment is called, managed to produce 10.5 grams of oxygen per hour last weekend, which may not seem like much to us, but it is a record for NASA.

That’s not much, and it’s far from an astronaut’s need for oxygen (an adult needs more than 11 grams of oxygen per minute), but even this value gives researchers hope that a future version of this experiment will be able to create enough oxygen to be used by rocket engines in the future , which will fly from the surface of the planet Mars back to Earth.

Essentially, MOXIE uses a piston to compress air from the Martian atmosphere, then heats it to 800°C and then directs it to a catalyst that splits the atmospheric carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide and oxygen. Seems simple, right? MOXIE, however, cannot produce more oxygen because it is limited both by its physical size and by the amount of electricity it receives from Perseverance (the rest of the rover’s equipment needs electricity to operate).

Oxygen is indispensable not only for the lungs of astronauts, but also for the engines of vehicles

In addition, MOXIE is not constantly working, only 11 operational cycles have been recorded so far, and the last one was the most productive (because it is winter in Jezero Crater, where Perseverance is located, and due to low temperatures, atmospheric pressure). more).

Currently, MOXIE receives 100 watts from Perseverance, and NASA estimates that it will need 25 kilowatts to produce 2-3 kilograms of oxygen per hour. Only at these values, in 26 months (the duration between two Mars missions, taking into account the orientation of the Earth and Mars), enough oxygen will be produced to bring a crew of 4-6 astronauts into Mars orbit, from where they could return to Earth.

Therefore, oxygen is indispensable not only for the lungs of cosmonauts, but also for the engines of the devices on which they return home. Otherwise, if oxygen were not produced on Mars, about 12-13 tons of oxygen would have to be launched from Earth into space for every ton sent to the surface of Mars, which is about 500 tons of oxygen for each mission to Mars.

MOXIE has demonstrated that it is possible to extract oxygen from the Martian atmosphere, which means that in one of the future missions to Mars, we will see a new version of this experiment on board future vehicles, larger and optimized to be able to produce even more oxygen. Who knows, maybe even for future cosmonauts.

The results of the first 7 operating cycles of the MOXI experiment were recently published in the journal Science.