By Tim Binnall
In a promising development when it comes to the possible future colonization of Mars, a device deployed by the Perseverance rover has successfully produced oxygen on the Red Planet. According to a press release, the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) is a small cube-shaped instrument which converts carbon dioxide found in the Martian atmosphere into oxygen. Last year, researchers tested the diminutive device seven times "in a variety of atmospheric conditions, including during the day and night, and through different Martian seasons." No matter the circumstances, the instrument was able to produce approximately six grams of oxygen every hour which is the equivalent of what a small tree would 'exhale' here on Earth.
"This is the first demonstration of actually using resources on the surface of another planetary body, and transforming them chemically into something that would be useful for a human mission," marveled MIT's Jeffrey Hoffman, who leads the MOXIE research, "it's historic in that sense." With the proverbial proof of concept having been achieved, NASA envisions eventually dispatching a much larger version of the instrument to the Red Planet so that it can steadily churn out oxygen on Mars in preparation for human explorers. Until then, however, the team operating MOXIE intend to rigorously test the device to see what its limitations might be.
"The next run coming up will be during the highest density of the year, and we just want to make as much oxygen as we can," team member Michael Hecht explained, "So we'll set everything as high as we dare, and let it run as long as we can." The researchers also hope to operate MOXIE during the Martian dawn and dusk, which is the one time frame that has yet to be tackle as the temperatures during those periods are particularly volatile. Indicating that have an idea of how best to achieve this, Hecht said that "once we test that in the lab, we can reach that last milestone to show we can really run any time."