MOXIE creates oxygen on Mars– A piece of historic news from NASA’s control room about the creation of oxygen on MARS. NASA reported the success of mission was achieved only with the help of an instrument that MIT designed. MOXIE is NASA’s perseverance rover that landed over the Martian surface in February 2021. The event is also important because, in space exploration history, oxygen has been created with the help of carbon dioxide.
MOXIE creates oxygen on Mars- What is MOXIE?
Well, the name MOXIE given to NASA’s rover was a well-thought process. It is expanded as Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment. It is a tiny golden box mounted over a rover that successfully executed solid oxide electrolysis. This converted the Martian carbon dioxide into oxygen, which certainly is a life-supporting component. An important point to be noted here is that Mars’ atmosphere contains nearly 95% of carbon-di-oxide. Thus, it brings in even more hope for scientists to create a life-supporting environment on MARS.
MOXIE’s produced 5.4 grams of oxygen in the first round
MOXIE’s ability to be a future space instrument can be gauged with the fact that it converted CO2 to produce 5.4 grams of oxygen in just one hour. The power allowance for the production of oxygen was only 12 grams/hour. This nearly is comparable to the amount that a gigantic tree would produce and is a great positive sign.
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MOXIE-A future Prospect
Michael Hecht is the principal investigator of MOXIE of MIT Haystack, maintains that oxygen is an indispensable part of space explorations. Thus he quotes that, “To burn its fuel, a rocket must have many times more oxygen by weight. To get four astronauts off the Martian surface on a future mission would require 15,000 pounds (7 metric tons) of rocket fuel and 55,000 pounds (25 metric tons) of oxygen”. He further adds, “The astronauts who spend a year on the surface will maybe use one metric ton between them to breathe”. And, as MOXIE creates oxygen on Mars, can prove to be great prospects for Martian expeditions.
