NASA's Perseverance successfully completes oxygen-making MOXIE mission on Mars

Terraforming Mars has been a dream of scientists and artists alike. Our next door neighbour in the Solar System is postulated to have harboured life millions of years ago but today it is a barren wasteland. Mars has atmosphere yes, but the oxygen levels are not enough for a human to survive. Hauling Oxygen from Earth would be extremely expensive endeavour. Hence, the emphasis over years has been to find a reliable technique to produce oxygen on Mars in situ, that is, on the planet itself using resources available there.

NASA's Perseverance rover has been roaming on the surface of Mars since 2021. It has now successfully completed its oxygen-producing MOXIE mission.

It is a device tagging along the Perseverance rover. The operations of MOXIE (Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment) are now concluding as the device has successfully produced oxygen for 16th and final time aboard Perseverance. The instrument, made by its creators at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has far exceeded their initial expectations.

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“MOXIE’s impressive performance shows that it is feasible to extract oxygen from Mars’ atmosphere – oxygen that could help supply breathable air or rocket propellant to future astronauts,” said NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy as quoted by SciTechDaily.

“Developing technologies that let us use resources on the Moon and Mars is critical to build a long-term lunar presence, create a robust lunar economy, and allow us to support an initial human exploration campaign to Mars.”

Since Perseverance landed on Mars in the year 2021, MOXIE has generated 122 grammes of oxygen. This is equivalent to what a small dog breathes in about 10 hours. This was twice the initial goal NASA had in mind. And the oxygen was of 98 per cent purity.

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On August 7, when MOXIE made the oxygen for the final time as part of its mission, it made 9.8 grammes of it.

“We’re proud to have supported a breakthrough technology like MOXIE that could turn local resources into useful products for future exploration missions,” said Trudy Kortes, director of technology demonstrations, Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) at NASA Headquarters in Washington she was quoted by SciTechDaily.

“By proving this technology in real-world conditions, we’ve come one step closer to a future in which astronauts ‘live off the land’ on the Red Planet.”

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