Amid the diverse range of experiments carried out by NASA’s Perseverance rover, one stands out for its groundbreaking achievement.
MOXIE (Mars Oxygen In Situ Resource Utilization Experiment) is designed to test future technology by converting a portion of Mars’ carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere into breathable oxygen. In a recent development, MOXIE doubled its maximum output.
It’s important to note that the toaster-sized instrument doesn’t significantly alter the Red Planet’s atmosphere. It works intermittently, only when the rover’s other crucial tasks are not going on.
Its purpose is to show the feasibility of the technology and pave the way for a larger-scale system capable of generating oxygen for astronauts and serving as fuel.
Since Perseverance’s landing on Mars, MOXIE has been run 15 times, accumulating about 1,000 minutes of operation by 2022. Encouraged by the favorable results, the team has progressively boosted the instrument’s capabilities, testing it at different times and places to understand the impact. environment in their actions.
During a run on June 6, MOXIE operated for 58 minutes with the goal of producing 6 grams of oxygen. Impressively, it exceeded expectations by generating 12 grams, showing its potential in this tech demo.
“We got great results,” Michael Hecht, MOXIE principal investigator and associate director of the Haystack Observatory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology told Space.
He added: “This was the riskiest race we have ever done. This could have gone wrong.”
How MOXIE works
MOXIE uses a process that consists of breaking down carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere to produce oxygen. The instrument first draws in and filters the air to remove dust and contaminants.
The compressed air is then sent through the Solid Oxide Electrolyzer (SOXE), where an electrochemical reaction splits it into oxygen and carbon monoxide. Special attention is paid to the management of any residual carbon by-products.
With less than one percent oxygen present in the Martian atmosphere, MOXIE’s current form produces oxygen equivalent to that produced by a medium-sized tree.
Future missions envision a larger, continuous device capable of generating tens of tons of oxygen, providing breathable air for astronauts, and providing the fuel needed to return a rocket to Earth.
Keep reading:
° Flying car receives certificate to fly in the US
° NASA “locks up” four volunteers in a Mars simulation room for a year
° Smoke from Canada’s wildfires has reached Europe