The Perseverance Rover’s MOXIE Inhales CO2 and Exhales Oxygen

You know about the Perseverance Rover that landed on Mars. I'd like to share some details about an experiment that traveled to Mars with the Rover. This experiment designed by MIT researchers is called MOXIE, for Mars, oxygen, In-situ resource, utilization experiment. It got coverage in several news outlets.

MOXIE is a car battery sized appliance that inhales CO2 from the motion atmosphere and exhales oxygen. The ability to create oxygen on Mars is important for future human travel to the red planet, not only to supply breathable air to astronauts, But also to create the immense volume of oxygen needed to fuel a trip back from Mars. It would take an estimated 25 metric tons of oxygen to fly a crew of four back.

Here's what MOXIE looks like inside. MOXIE uses a compressor, a heater, and the chemical process of electrolysis to create oxygen at a rate of 6 to 10 grams per hour. MOXIE uses all the electricity the Rover can spare and operates at a sweltering temperature of 800 degrees Celsius. This graphic shows where MOXIE is located on the Rover.

The team from MIT used MATLAB and Simulink to design and simulate the MOXIE system, including the electrolysis system, the heart of the device. MATLAB and Simulink were used for data analysis and mission operations, including analyzing the results of the first test run of the system when MOXIE successfully made 5.4 grams of oxygen. The team used simulation to simulate commands on the ground before sending them to Mars. Since the team would have no way to fix the device if something went wrong.

They have a digital twin of the system for just this purpose. The MIT team is now working on MOXIE's successor, which NASA would send to Mars before sending humans. That larger system will spend 14 months generating tons of oxygen. And the team is already using the Simulink models from MOXIE to guide the full sized system's design. You can read more about this story on MathWorks website.