Scientists at NASA are excited as the ongoing winter season on Mars would allow the Perseverance rover to produce more oxygen. Yes, producing oxygen on another planet is now a possibility thanks to the MOXIE ( Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment) equipment aboard the SUV-sized rover. NASA says that the air on Mars during the winter is much denser, which means that there is a higher amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) that MOXIE can work with. 

Isn't this refreshing? Denser air during the Martian winter means record productivity for MOXIE, the oxygen-extraction experiment on our @NASAPersevere rover. MOXIE demonstrates tech that could help future human explorers breathe on Mars: https://t.co/VfHUns71Fy pic.twitter.com/sK4kNl4g19

Currently, it is the peak of winter at the Jezero crater, Perseverance’s landing site, and the cold nights cause a rise in atmospheric pressure which results in denser air. On April 22 last year, NASA announced that Perseverance produced oxygen on Mars using MOXIE and since then, the experiment has been conducted seven times. 

MOXIE, which is no bigger than a toaster, splits CO2 into oxygen atoms using electricity and releases carbon monoxide as a byproduct into the Martian atmosphere. According to NASA, the instrument heats up to 800°C for the conversion process. On its first try, the instrument produced five grams of oxygen which was enough for an astronaut for ten minutes. 

NASA says that MOXIE can produce ten grams of oxygen every hour. Interestingly, the scientists pushed the boundaries this time to a rate of nearly 10.5 grams per hour and doubling this amount could help an astronaut survive relatively longer. 

Another huge first: converting CO2 into oxygen on Mars. Working off the land with what’s already here, my MOXIE instrument has shown it can be done! Future explorers will need to generate oxygen for rocket fuel and for breathing on the Red Planet. https://t.co/9sjZT9KeOR

“We have a long way to go before being able to make the 2 to 3 kilograms per hour that will be needed to make the tens of tons of propellant to lift a human crew of four to six astronauts off the surface of Mars and into orbit”, a team of experts wrote in a recent study. They, however, highlighted that for generating the said amount, MOXIE would need 25 kilowatts of power as opposed to 100 watts generated by Perseverance. 

They also revealed that only 10% of the total power is being used for oxygen production and the rest is being used up for the collection of air and functioning of other electronics. Currently, in the testing phase, instruments such as MOXIE could provide a wide range of advantages except for breathable air for astronauts. As mentioned above, oxygen production on Mars would spare the astronauts from carrying hundreds of tons of the element from Earth.