While most attention regarding the current U.S. mission on Mars has been appropriately focused on the test flights of the helicopter Ingenuity, another crucial capability has been proven by the Perseverance rover—the ability to create oxygen from the Martian atmosphere with the appropriately named Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE). This toaster-sized experimental instrument aboard Perseverance was able to convert some of Mars’s carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere into oxygen, in a test that was conducted on April 20.
The first test produced about 5 grams of oxygen, enough to allow an astronaut to breathe for about 10 minutes with normal activity.
In the future, devices like the MOXIE could produce tons of breathable air for astronauts—or for future colonies—as well as manufacture oxygen as a key component for rockets that could be built and fueled on Mars. A future descendant of MOXIE would have to be scaled up to about a ton in order to efficiently create enough oxygen for rocket fuel, about 25 metric tons.
The Red Planet’s atmosphere is about 96% carbon dioxide; MOXIE separates the oxygen atoms from the carbon dioxide molecules (one carbon atom and two oxygen atoms). The waste product, carbon monoxide, is vented into the Martian atmosphere.
As a NASA article describes it, “The conversion process requires high levels of heat to reach a temperature of approximately 1,470° Fahrenheit (800° Celsius). To accommodate this, the MOXIE unit is made with heat-tolerant materials. These include 3D-printed nickel alloy parts, which heat and cool the gases flowing through it, and a lightweight aerogel that helps hold in the heat. A thin gold coating on the outside of MOXIE reflects infrared heat, keeping it from radiating outward and potentially damaging other parts of Perseverance.” (https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-perseverance-mars-rover-extracts-first-oxygen-from-red-planet)
The experiment also served to demonstrate that the instrument survived the launch from Earth, the long journey through deep space, and landing of Perseverance on Mars on Feb. 18.
Trudy Kortes, Director of Technology Demonstrations within NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate explained, “MOXIE isn’t just the first instrument to produce oxygen on another world. It’s the first technology of its kind that will help future missions ‘live off the land’.…
“It’s taking regolith, the substance you find on the ground, and putting it through a processing plant, making it into a large structure, or taking carbon dioxide – the bulk of the atmosphere – and converting it into oxygen,” she said. “This process allows us to convert these abundant materials into usable things: propellant, breathable air, or, combined with hydrogen, water.”
Now, doesn’t this underscore the fact that any discussion of a “CO2 emissions problem” on Earth is simply, “out of this world"?
