NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover Extracts First Oxygen From Red Planet

The growing list of “firsts” for Perseverance, NASA’s newest six-wheeled robot on the Martian surface, includes converting some of the Red Planet’s thin, carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere into oxygen. A toaster-size, gold box-shaped experimental instrument aboard Perseverance called the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) accomplished the task.

MOXIE successfully demonstrated a solid oxide electrolysis technology for converting the Martian atmosphere to oxygen. The atmosphere on Mars is about 95% carbon dioxide.

MOXIE’s first oxygen run produced 5.4 grams of oxygen in an hour, equivalent to about 10 minutes’ worth of breathable oxygen for an astronaut.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.
Credit: MIT Haystack Observatory
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

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[jcjensenllc]

Why don't we use thatbtech on earth?