Perseverance rover just made oxygen on Mars

The Perseverance rover may be parked at an overlook to capture any flights by the Ingenuity helicopter over the next two weeks, but it’s not wasting any of its time on Mars.

The rover on Tuesday successfully converted some of the plentiful carbon dioxide on Mars into oxygen as a first test of its MOXIE instrument. The name MOXIE is short for Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment.

After warming up for about two hours, MOXIE produced 5.4 grams of oxygen. This is enough to sustain an astronaut for about 10 minutes.

The team installed MOXIE into the chassis of the Perseverance rover in March 2019.

The instrument is about the size of a toaster, and it’s a technology demonstration installed on the rover. If this experiment is successful, it could assist with human exploration of Mars in the future.

The thin Martian atmosphere is 96% carbon dioxide, which isn’t much help to oxygen-breathing humans.

Something that can convert that carbon dioxide into oxygen efficientlycould help in more ways than one. Bigger and better versions of something like MOXIE in the future could convert and store oxygen needed for rocket fuel, as well as supply life support systems with breathable air.

The instrument works by dividing up carbon dioxide molecules, which include one carbon atom and two oxygen atoms. It separates out the oxygen molecules and emits carbon monoxide as a waste product.

Heat-tolerant materials, like a coating of gold and aerogel, were used to make the instrument since this conversion process requires temperatures reaching 1,470 degrees Fahrenheit. These materials keep the heat from radiating out and damaging any aspect of the rover.

This composite image looking toward the higher regions of Mount Sharp was taken on September 9, 2015, by NASA's Curiosity rover. In the foreground -- about 2 miles (3 kilometers) from the rover -- is a long ridge teeming with hematite, an iron oxide. Just beyond is an undulating plain rich in clay minerals. And just beyond that are a multitude of rounded buttes, all high in sulfate minerals. The changing mineralogy in these layers of Mount Sharp suggests a changing environment in early Mars, though all involve exposure to water billions of years ago. The Curiosity team hopes to be able to explore these diverse areas in the months and years ahead. Further back in the image are striking, light-toned cliffs in rock that may have formed in drier times and now is heavily eroded by winds. The colors are adjusted so that rocks look approximately as they would if they were on Earth, to help geologists interpret the rocks. This "white balancing" to adjust for the lighting on Mars overly compensates for the absence of blue on Mars, making the sky appear light blue and sometimes giving dark, black rocks a blue cast. Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, built and operates Curiosity's Mastcam. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, built the rover and manages the project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. For more information about Curiosity, visit https://www.nasa.gov/msl and https://mars.nasa.gov/msl. More information about Curiosity is online at https://www.nasa.gov/msl and https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/. Credit NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

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“This is a critical first step at converting carbon dioxide to oxygen on Mars,” said Jim Reuter, associate administrator for NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, 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 breathe. Rocket propellant depends on oxygen, and future explorers will depend on producing propellant on Mars to make the trip home.”

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In order to launch four astronauts from the surface of Mars, about 15,000 pounds of rocket fuel and 55,000pounds of oxygen would be required. Living on the surface of Mars, the space explorers would consume far less.

“The astronauts who spend a year on the surface will maybe use one metric ton between them,” said Michael Hecht, principal investigator for MOXIE at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Haystack Observatory, in a statement.

Transporting that much oxygen from Earth to Mars would be incredibly difficult and expensive and would mean less room on the spacecraft for other necessities.

July 9, 2013 Mosaic of the Valles Marineris hemisphere of Mars projected into point perspective, a view similar to that which one would see from a spacecraft. The distance is 2500 kilometers from the surface of the planet, with the scale being .6km/pixel. The mosaic is composed of 102 Viking Orbiter images of Mars. The center of the scene (lat -8, long 78) shows the entire Valles Marineris canyon system, over 2000 kilometers long and up to 8 kilometers deep, extending form Noctis Labyrinthus, the arcuate system of graben to the west, to the chaotic terrain to the east. Many huge ancient river channels begin from the chaotic terrain from north-central canyons and run north. The three Tharsis volcanoes (dark red spots), each about 25 kilometers high, are visible to the west. South of Valles Marineris is very ancient terrain covered by many impact craters. Credit NASA/JPL-Caltech

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However, an oxygen converter weighing about 1 ton – a large, powerful future generation of MOXIE – could produce the required oxygen.

For future tests, MOXIE likely will generate up to 10 grams of oxygen per hour. The instrument will run tests about nine more times over the next two years, and the research team will use data to design future generations of MOXIE.

Much like the objectives set forthe Ingenuity helicopter, which is also a technology demonstration, the goal is forMOXIE to push the limits of the instrument.

NASA's Perseverance Mars rover took a selfie with the Ingenuity helicopter, seen here about 13 feet (3.9 meters) from the rover. This image was taken by the WASTON camera on the rover's robotic arm on April 6, 2021, the 46th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. Credit: Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

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During the first phase, the team will evaluate how the instrument is functioning. A second phase will test MOXIE under different conditions, such as time of day or varying seasons. And during the third and final phase, “we’ll push the envelope” – trying new operating modes, or introducing “new wrinkles, such as a run where we compare operations at three or more different temperatures,” Hecht said.

Technology like MOXIE could help future astronauts essentially live off the land and utilize the resources of their surroundings.

“MOXIE isn’t just the first instrument to produce oxygen on another world,” said Trudy Kortes, director of technology demonstrations at NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, in a statement.

“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. This process allows us to convert these abundant materials into useable things: propellant, breathable air, or, combined with hydrogen, water.”

The positive results of this first test takes Mars missions one step closer to landing humans on the red planet.