NASA's Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) successfully concluded its mission by producing oxygen on the Red Planet.
Since the Perseverance rover's landing in 2021, MOXIE has produced a cumulative 122 grams of oxygen—roughly the amount breathed by a small dog in 10 hours. Notably, the device demonstrated its capability to generate oxygen at an hourly rate of 12 grams, doubling NASA’s original target, and consistently maintained an impressive purity level of 98% or better. On its concluding run on August 7, MOXIE yielded 9.8 grams of oxygen.
The device operates by electrochemically separating oxygen atoms from carbon dioxide molecules harvested from Mars' tenuous atmosphere. As these gasses circulate through the system, they undergo analysis to gauge the quality and quantity of the oxygen being generated. "We couldn't be more thrilled to have supported a groundbreaking technology like MOXIE," said Trudy Kortes, Director of Technology Demonstrations at NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate . The success of MOXIE, she said, has brought humanity "one step closer to a future where astronauts could 'live off the land' on Mars."As for what's next after MOXIE, the focus isn't on creating a MOXIE 2.0, despite the rich learnings from the current model.
Michael Hecht, the principal investigator of MOXIE at MIT, envisions a future where MOXIE-like technologies form the cornerstone of in-situ resource utilization , an emerging field of research. "MOXIE has been a beacon for the ISRU community, proving that NASA is committed to investing in technologies that will shape the future of space exploration," Hecht stated.Perseverance's mission isn't only about preparing for human exploration.
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