NASA Creates Oxygen On Mars, Major Milestone For Space Exploration

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Mars Perseverance rover experimental board has extracted breathable oxygen from carbon dioxide for the first time on the extraterrestrial world of Mars

The milestone achievement is an important proof of concept for more advanced technologies that will be necessary to support human exploration of the Red planet in the future.

Scientists have been eager to exemplify onsite oxygen production on Mars for decades, but Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) is the first experiment that actually has made it to the red planet.

On April 20, this long-time dream became a reality as MOXIE successfully produced about five grams of oxygen, enough to keep an astronaut alive for 10 minutes.

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Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) is reported to be about the size of a shoebox and sits near the front of Perseverance’s frame. MOXIE sucks in Martian air which is 96 percent carbon dioxide, heats it up to about 1,470°F (800°C) and plucks the oxygen atoms out of the carbon dioxide using a process called solid oxide electrolysis.

Associate administrator for NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate Jim Reuter described the achievement in a statement as a critical first step at converting carbon dioxide to oxygen on Mars and that more work needs to be done.

“This is a critical first step at converting carbon dioxide to oxygen on Mars. 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 breathe,” Reuter added. Rocket propellant depends on oxygen, and future explorers will depend on producing propellant on Mars to make the trip home.”

Blasting a crew off of the Martian surface would take about 55,000 pounds (25 metric tons) of oxygen, about 25 times as much as a Mars-based crew of astronauts would need to breathe over an entire year. To that point, the volume of oxygen required to fuel a return trip from Mars far outweighs the volume needed for human life support.

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A crewed round-trip to Mars would be an extremely complex, dangerous, and expensive undertaking, forcing mission planners to optimize the limited space and weight available. It would be far more economical to manufacture this key gas at the Martian surface with a future scaled-up iteration of MOXIE which scientists estimate would weigh about one ton than it would haul 25 metric tons of Earth oxygen across the 33-million-mile gulf between the planets.

MOXIE will continue to test its oxygen-making abilities over the next Martian year, a period of 687 days, potentially meeting its peak production rate of 10 grams of oxygen in an hour. Though this is just a technology demonstration, it paves the way for more sophisticated experiments that could eventually support the first human missions to another planet.