At about 140 times the distance from Earth to the Moon , on the dusty red surface of Mars, a small instrument on Perseverance is showing that it can reliably do the job of a small tree in terms of producing oxygen. The MIT-led Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment , or MOXIE, has been producing oxygen from the Red Planet’s carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere since February. 2021, when it landed on the Martian surface as part of NASA’s Perseverance rover mission.
The researchers suggest that an enlarged version of Moxie could be sent to Mars , to continuously produce oxygen at the rate of several hundred trees, before humans go to the planet.
“We’ve learned a lot that will help future larger-scale systems,” says Michael Hecht, principal investigator for the MOXIE mission at MIT’s Haystack Observatory.
How much oxygen does it produce?
According to the study, published in the journal Science Advances, the experiment has been able to produce oxygen in seven experimental runs. All of them were carried out in a wide variety of atmospheric conditions, including during the day and night, and in different Martian seasons. In each experimental run, MOXIE reached its goal of producing six grams of oxygen per hour; about the rate of a small tree on Earth.
At full capacity, the system is expected to be able to generate enough oxygen to sustain humans once they reach Mars and power a rocket to return humans to Earth.
MOXIE’s production of oxygen on Mars also represents the first demonstration of ” in situ resource utilization,” which is the idea of harvesting and using a planet’s materials (in this case, carbon dioxide on Mars) to produce resources ( such as oxygen) that would otherwise have to be transported from our planet (at the cost that this would entail).
“This is the first demonstration of the actual use of resources on the surface of another planetary body and their chemical transformation into something that would be useful for a human mission,” says MOXIE Deputy Principal Investigator Jeffrey Hoffman, professor of practice at the MIT Department. of Aeronautics and Astronautics. “It’s historic in that sense.”
The current version of the instrument has a fairly minimalist design, precisely to fit aboard the Perseverance rover, and is designed to work for short periods. A large-scale oxygen factory would include larger units that would ideally run continuously. Engineers plan to improve its capacity and increase production, particularly in the Martian spring, when atmospheric density and carbon dioxide levels are high. So far, Moxie has shown that it can generate oxygen at almost any time of the Martian day and year. If the system can function successfully despite being repeatedly turned on and off, this would suggest that a large-scale system, designed to run continuously, could do so for thousands of hours.
“The next race coming up will be during the highest density of the year, and we just want to generate as much oxygen as possible,” Hecht clarifies. “Then we’ll put everything as high as we dare, and let it run as long as we can .”
“To support a human mission to Mars, we have to bring back a lot of things from Earth, like computers, spacesuits and habitats,” says Hoffman. “But silly old oxygen? If you can do it there do it, you’ll be way ahead of the game.”
Reference: Jeffrey A. Hoffman, Michael H. Hecht, Donald Rapp, Joseph J. Hartvigsen, Jason G. Soohoo, Asad M. Aboobaker, John B. Mcclean, Andrew M. Liu, Eric D. Hinterman, Nasr, Shravan Hariharan, Kyle J. Horn, Forrest E. Meyen, Harald Okkels, Parker Steen, Singaravelu Elangovan, Christopher R. Graves, Piyush Khopkar, Morten B. Madsen, Gerald E. Voecks, Peter, H. Smith, Theis, L. Shaft, Koorosh R. Araghiand, David J. Eisenman. Mars Oxygen ISRU Experiment (MOXIE)—Preparation for human Mars exploration. Science Advances, 2022 DOI: DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abp8636
