NASA's Perseverance rover hit another milestone this week when it converted a sample of the Red Planet's thin, carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere into oxygen.
The six-wheeled robot's toaster-sized Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) instrument completed its task on April 20—the 60th Martian day since Perseverance landed in February.
"This is a critical first step at converting carbon dioxide to oxygen on Mars," Jim Reuter, associate administrator for NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD), said in a statement. "MOXIE has more work to do, but the results from this technology demonstration are full of promise as we move toward our goal of one day seeing humans on Mars.
"Oxygen isn't just the stuff we breath," he continued. "Rocket propellant depends on oxygen, and future explorers will depend on producing propellant on Mars to make the trip home."
Getting four astronauts off the Martian surface would require approximately 15,000 pounds (7 metric tons) of rocket fuel and 55,000 pounds (25 metric tons) of oxygen, according to NASA. Humans living and working on Mars for a year, meanwhile, would "maybe" use one metric ton between them, MOXIE principal investigator Michael Hecht explained. The Martian atmosphere is 96% carbon dioxide (compared to just 0.04% on Earth).
In its first operation this week, MOXIE's oxygen production was "quite modest," NASA said, citing only 5 grams—"equivalent to about 10 minutes worth of breathable oxygen for an astronaut." The machine is designed to generate up to 10 grams of oxygen per hour, and will extract oxygen at least nine more times over the course of a Martian year. It works by separating oxygen atoms from carbon dioxide molecules.
"MOXIE isn't just the first instrument to produce oxygen on another world," said Trudy Kortes, director of technology demonstrations within STMD. It's also the first of its kind to help future missions "live off the land" using elements from another world's environment—i.e. In-situ resource utilization.
"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," Kortes said. "This process allows us to convert these abundant materials into usable things: propellant, breathable air, or, combined with hydrogen, water."
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