The researchers shared that MOXIE has worked as hoped over seven experimental runs, and has managed to produce oxygen both during the day and at night, and in different Martian seasons. The machine produced around six grams of oxygen per hour, meeting its goals and proving that making oxygen on Mars is possible.
“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,” said Jeffrey Hoffman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “It’s historic in that sense.”
Tthe MOXIE device on Perseverance produces only a relatively small amount of oxygen. If the device were to be scaled up, it could produce much more oxygen for future missions to use.
The current version is also designed to only operate occasionally, as there is a very strict limit on how much power any device on a rover can use. A larger version of the technology could run continuously, making oxygen all the time.
MOXIE works like a fuel cell run backwards — instead of using carbon monoxide and an oxidizer to produce carbon dioxide and electricity, you put in carbon dioxide and electricity and you get out oxygen and carbon monoxide.
The researchers will continue periodically running MOXIE to learn more about it, and to see if it can produce more oxygen during the spring season which has high atmospheric density and higher rates of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
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