NASA’s Perseverance Rover Makes Oxygen on Mars

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched Perseverance, nicknamed Percy, on July 30, 2020, from Florida’s Space Coast. NASA started the planning of the project in 2013 and began building the spacecraft in 2016. It was completed in February 2020 and launched five months later. Perseverance landed on Mars on February 18, 2021. 

Perseverance’s mission includes examining the development of Mars’ climate, surface, and internal structure. The rover will also experiment with various technologies in preparation for potential human exploration of the planet. Along with these scientific objectives, Perseverance will also collect rock samples from Mars’ surface.

Perseverance has been active on Mars for over 2 years now. Inside the Rover, is a a small device called MOXIE (Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment) whose aim is to produce oxygen from Mars’s atmosphere. The atmosphere on Mars is thin. 96% of the atmosphere is made up of carbon dioxide. Only 0.13% is made up of oxygen.  Its rate of oxygen production is 10 grams per hour. So far MOXIE has made breathable oxygen on 16 different occasions since its first attempt. It has succeeded in making 122 grams of breathable oxygen on Mars. This amount is enough for an astronaut to breathe for almost three hours.  

MOXIE makes breakable oxygen on Mars by breaking down one molecule of carbon dioxide into two molecules of oxygen.