{"id":2364,"date":"2021-04-22T23:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-04-22T23:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/modernsciences.org\/?p=2364"},"modified":"2021-08-21T05:51:23","modified_gmt":"2021-08-21T05:51:23","slug":"perseverances-moxie-generates-oxygen-on-mars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/perseverances-moxie-generates-oxygen-on-mars\/","title":{"rendered":"Perseverance\u2019s MOXIE Generates Oxygen on Mars"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It seems the list of \u201cfirsts\u201d for NASA’s Perseverance<\/em> rover keeps scooping up more and more achievements. After its Ingenuity<\/em> helicopter initiated the first-ever controlled, powered flight of an aircraft on another planet<\/a>, its on-board Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment<\/em>, or MOXIE<\/em> for short, succeeds in generating oxygen from the red planet\u2019s thin, carbon dioxide-rich (CO2<\/sub>-rich) atmosphere. The milestone presents tantalizing opportunities for future manned missions to the red planet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MOXIE<\/em> is a small, oven toaster-sized instrument located atop Perseverance<\/em>, responsible for testing the feasibility of generating oxygen from all the carbon dioxide in the Martian air by splitting CO2<\/sub> into its atomic components, and getting oxygen while releasing carbon monoxide (CO) into the Martian atmosphere as a waste product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Around only 5 grams of O2<\/sub> were generated on this first run\u2014just enough for around 10 minutes of breathable air for an average astronaut. The entire instrument itself was designed to generate up to 10 grams, so more adjustments and optimization are needed. In its entirety, the technology demonstration showed that such a device can survive takeoff from Earth, interplanetary travel for 7 months, then a subsequent descent and landing into Mars. MOXIE itself is planned to extract oxygen 9 more times within the span of the Martian year beginning with its first run, which is around 2 Earth years. Overall, the device will go through three phases of testing: first, to check out and characterize its function after landing; second, to run the instrument in varying atmospheric conditions, such as during Martian days and nights, or different Martian seasons; and third, further testing while trying new operation modes, such as differences in temperature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Why<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Getting a space vessel to escape velocity and out of Earth\u2019s gravitational embrace requires a lot of fuel\u2014fuel that that very rocket must bring with itself. And to bring all that fuel, plus all the tanks that must contain it, a rocket needs that much more thrust to carry all that additional weight, which now requires more fuel\u2014and the cycle continues ad infinitum. Space-faring vessels must then take into account the weight of its payload into account before takeoff. It\u2019s for this reason that spaceships jettison their fuel tanks during the launch sequence once they\u2019re emptied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, any manned mission to Mars must bring with it all the essentials: food, water, and all the instruments and tools required for the mission, including all the oxygen the astronauts will be breathing in for the entirety of the trip there. It would be unfeasible to, say, just attach tons of food or water to the spacecraft, as this would add more unremovable weight to a spaceship during takeoff. It would be more economical, then, to instead equip our astronauts with just enough food, water, and other essentials to make the trip to their destination (such as Mars), and simply give them the tools<\/em> they need to make<\/em> their own food, water, and oxygen instead. MOXIE\u2019s goal is to address oxygen generation in this manner: to skip bringing tons of oxygen tanks along with the trip, and simply use the resources already available on Mars instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Trudy Kortes, director of technology demonstrations at NASA\u2019s Space Technology Mission DIrectorate (STMD), MOXIE won\u2019t just be the first instrument to produce oxygen on another planet; it\u2019s also the first technology of its kind that will help future manned missions \u201clive off the land\u201d through using another planet\u2019s resources\u2014a process called in-situ resource utilization<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s taking regolith (the layer of roughly loose rocky material covering bedrock) […] and putting it through a processing plant, making it into a large structure, or taking carbon dioxide \u2013 the bulk of the atmosphere \u2013 and converting it into oxygen. […] This process allows us to convert these abundant materials into usable things: propellant, breathable air, or, combined with hydrogen, water.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bibliography<\/h2>\n\n\n\n