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Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) - NASA Mars
Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) - NASA Mars

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MOXIE Lowered into Rover: Technicians in the clean room are carefully lowering the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) instrument into the belly of the Perseverance rover. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech. Full image and caption ›

MOXIE
The Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment, or MOXIE, is helping NASA prepare for human exploration of Mars. MOXIE will test a way for future explorers to produce oxygen from the Martian atmosphere for burning fuel and breathing.
Tech Specs

Main Job
To produce oxygen from the Martian carbon-dioxide atmosphere

Location
Inside the rover (front, right side)

Mass
About 37.7 pounds (17.1 kilograms) on Earth

Weight
Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) - NASA Mars
MOXIE uses a device called an "electrolyzer" to make oxygen from the carbon dioxide in the air. An electrolyzer is a close cousin to a fuel cell, which is a device we use to directly make electricity from fuel and oxygen. You can think of MOXIE as a fuel cell running in reverse. 

For Scientists
NASA is preparing for human exploration of Mars, and the MOXIE investigation on the Mars 2020 mission aims to address key knowledge gaps.
Read More ›

The Story Behind the Name
MOXIE stands for the Mars OXygen ISRU Experiment. ISRU is another acronym, In Situ Resource Utilization, which is a technical way of describing what most of us call "living off the land."
The word "moxie," used to describe someone with spunk and audacity, came from the soft drink of the same name. The soft drink, Moxie, was invented in the late 1800s in Lowell, Massachusetts, not far from the M.I.T. Haystack Observatory where the MOXIE principal investigator works. You can still buy Moxie in New England, and it's considered the official drink of the state of Maine.
The connection with soft drinks doesn't end there. According to some accounts, the Moxie company was the first in the U.S. to use carbon dioxide (CO2) to make a beverage fizzy. On Mars, MOXIE is the first to use carbon dioxide to make – well, anything at all. Another connection is more technical. Whenever we run MOXIE, we need to be very careful with the settings to make sure we only produce carbon monoxide (CO), and not pure carbon, which would ruin it. That destructive process is called "coking." The carbon deposit itself is called – coke.

All About MOXIE

What does MOXIE do?

Compared to what we're used to on Earth, the air on Mars is very thin. In fact, there is less than 1% as much air on the surface of Mars as on Earth, and visiting Mars would be like flying in a balloon 100,00 feet up in the air.
Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) - NASA Mars
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Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) - NASA Mars
On Earth, we are always getting energy from the reaction between oxygen and whatever fuel we are using — whether it's a log in a campfire or gasoline in a car tank. The oxygen weighs several times more than the fuel it burns, which is not an issue on our planet. However, when we have to bring it with us to other locations in space, we need to think a lot about that weight and other factors.

MOXIE Makes Oxygen 'Out of Thin Air'
Fuel needs oxygen to burn—for example, on Earth, oxygen is constantly being converted to carbon dioxide by animals, or fires, or other chemical reactions. Plants and trees use water and sunlight to convert the carbon dioxide back to oxygen, replenishing the air. On Mars, MOXIE also makes oxygen from carbon dioxide, about as much as a modest-sized tree, though using a very different process.

MOXIE is a Scale Model for a Future Big MOXIE
To launch from Mars, a small crew of human explorers will need 25 to 30 tons of oxygen, or about the weight of a tractor-trailer! To make that much oxygen would require a 25,000 to 30,000 watt power plant. The Perseverance power system only provides about 100 watts, so MOXIE can only make a small fraction of the oxygen that a future "Big MOXIE" would need to make.

MOXIE is a 'Tech Demo'
NASA uses technical demonstrations, or tech demos, when it's not enough to just test a critical technology in the laboratory and it needs to be proven on an actual mission.

Where Is MOXIE Located?

Michael Hecht
Principal Investigator

Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Did You Know?
MOXIE uses a device called an "electrolyzer" to make oxygen from the carbon dioxide in the air. An electrolyzer is a close cousin to a fuel cell, which is a device we use to directly make electricity from fuel and oxygen. You can think of MOXIE as a fuel cell running in reverse. 

For Scientists
NASA is preparing for human exploration of Mars, and the MOXIE investigation on the Mars 2020 mission aims to address key knowledge gaps.
Read More ›
Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) - NASA Mars
Another example is making oxygen out of the thin Martian air.

How does MOXIE work?

MOXIE is an example of a "solid oxide electrolyzer cell," which is a fuel cell that runs in reverse. In a fuel cell, fuel and oxygen react to make energy (electricity) and a stable chemical product. The most common example is the hydrogen fuel cell, used in some automobiles, which combines hydrogen and oxygen to make water and electricity. A hydrogen cell of this type, in contrast, would start with the water and use electricity to turn it back into hydrogen and oxygen. The two devices, the fuel cell and the electrolyzer, are nearly identical devices, operated in a very different way.
Using water to make oxygen on Mars would be a great idea if we had easy access to the water. But to get water, we would have to travel to the far north or south to find ice, or to mine for ice buried deep in the ground. Fortunately, though, another source of oxygen is all around us, in the form of the carbon dioxide that makes up most of the Martian air. So instead of using hydrogen, MOXIE is an example of a solid oxide electrolyzer cell that uses carbon dioxide to make the gasses carbon monoxide and oxygen. 

Why will we need oxygen on Mars?

The first human crew to go to Mars will need a lot of oxygen to breathe, as much as 2 to 3 tons. Our bodies use that oxygen to burn our fuel, which we call "food," in order to make the energy that keeps us going all day. But it's not just humans who need oxygen. Nearly everything that uses fuel to make energy uses oxygen to burn that fuel, whether it's a car, a campfire, or a rocket. And it turns out that the oxygen, which on Earth we get for free from the air, actually weighs a lot more than the fuel itself.
When we send the first crew to Mars, we would need to think about how to bring them home at the end of their visit. And the single biggest user of oxygen in their entire stay on Mars will be the rocket that takes them back to orbit.
Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) - NASA Mars
The Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment, or MOXIE, is helping NASA prepare for human exploration of Mars. MOXIE will test a way for future explorers to produce oxygen from the Martian atmosphere for burning fuel and breathing.
Tech Specs

Main Job
To produce oxygen from the Martian carbon-dioxide atmosphere

Location
Inside the rover (front, right side)

Mass
About 37.7 pounds (17.1 kilograms) on Earth

Weight
37.7 pounds on Earth, 14.14 pounds on Mars

Power
300 watts

Volume
9.4 x 9.4 x 12.2 inches
(23.9 x 23.9 x 30.9 centimeters)

Oxygen Production Rate
Up to 0.022 pounds per hour 
(up to 10 grams per hour)

Operation Time
Approximately one hour of oxygen (O2) production per experiment, scheduled intermittently over the duration of the mission.

"To support a human mission to Mars, we have to bring a lot of stuff from Earth, like computers, spacesuits, and habitats. But oxygen? If you can make it there, go for it — you're way ahead of the game." 
 - Jeff Hoffman, MOXIE Deputy Principal Investigator

5 Things to Know

Oxygen is Rare on Mars
There is less than 1% of air on Mars as there is on Earth, and carbon dioxide makes up about 96% of it on Mars. Oxygen is only 0.13%, compared to 21% in Earth's atmosphere. If we want oxygen on Mars, we either have to bring it along, or make it ourselves.

Fuel Needs Oxygen to Burn
On Earth, we are always getting energy from the reaction between oxygen and whatever fuel we are using — whether it's a log in a campfire or gasoline in a car tank. The oxygen weighs several times more than the fuel it burns, which is not an issue on our planet. However, when we have to bring it with us to other locations in space, we need to think a lot about that weight and other factors.

MOXIE Makes Oxygen 'Out of Thin Air'
Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) - NASA Mars
When we send an astronaut crew to Mars, one idea is to send all the things they'll need – a place to live, rovers, a power plant, and maybe a "Big MOXIE" – on one launch opportunity, then send the astronauts on the next opportunity, 26 months later. If we do that, then the base would be in place for about 20 months before the astronauts start their trip. The goal of a Big MOXIE would be to make and store all the oxygen that the astronaut and their rocket would need for their mission before they even launch. That means the Big MOXIE would need to make 2,000 to 3,000 grams of oxygen per hour, compared to the 6-10 grams that the current MOXIE is making. And it would need to do that all day and night, without stopping, for most of the 20 months.
We expect that the astronauts would need at least 25 kilowatts of power for their mission, and that the Big MOXIE relies on being able to use that power plant for making oxygen until the astronauts arrive. We also expect Big MOXIE to be the size of a small chest freezer and to weigh about 1 ton.

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MOPITT | Terra
MOPITT is a Canadian instrument; conceived, designed and constructed in Canada.Jim began his scientific career at the University of Oxford where he completed his D.Phil. and a Post-Doctoral Fellowship, joining the Physics Department at the University of Toronto in 1979. Jim was the first person to thoroughly develop the concept of the length-modulated radiometer, recognizing the advantages that it offered over pressure-modulated radiometers. Jim and his students developed both balloon-borne and ground-based instruments based on these principles. In the late 1980s, he conceived the original concept for a nadir-viewing satellite instrument capable of measuring tropospheric constituents, including the acquisition of some vertical information using a combination of pressure-modulated cells to probe the upper troposphere and length-modulated cells for the lower troposphere.Jim’s dedication culminated in the successful launch of the MOPITT instrument in 1999. Twenty years post-launch, Jim continues to be the Principal Investigator for MOPITT, leading an international team of Co-Investigators, including colleagues from the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, which is responsible for the retrievals.MOPITT is the first satellite instrument to make long-term global measurements of tropospheric pollutants, focusing on carbon monoxide. It is an eight-channel scanning radiometer that measures upwelling thermal emission and reflected solar radiation from the Earth’s surface and atmosphere. As PI, Jim maintained an active participation in every aspect of the MOPITT instrument design, testing, and characterization, taking a hands-on approach. As one colleague remarked at an international meeting some years ago, after hearing Jim give a talk on the MOPITT instrument, “it’s impressive how well he knows every detail of that instrument inside-out”.Jim and the Terra satellite team received the 2019 William T. Pecora Team Award from NASA and the U.S. Department of the Interior. The citation notes that “Terra is arguably one of the most successful Earth-sensing satellites ever deployed.” The citation also says that MOPITT was the first instrument “designed to observe the distribution and transport of tropospheric carbon monoxide and, along with other sensors, has helped advance our understanding of air quality and biomass burning emissions.”
Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) - NASA Mars
That destructive process is called "coking." The carbon deposit itself is called – coke.

All About MOXIE

What does MOXIE do?

Compared to what we're used to on Earth, the air on Mars is very thin. In fact, there is less than 1% as much air on the surface of Mars as on Earth, and visiting Mars would be like flying in a balloon 100,00 feet up in the air. And not only is the air thin, but it's made almost entirely out of carbon dioxide (CO2).
On Earth, we can thank the myriad forms of life for the oxygen in our atmosphere that our body greedily absorbs with every breath we take. All around us, trees and plants are busy scrubbing CO2 out of our atmosphere and turning it into useful oxygen, at the same time taking up water and turning it into the chemicals that the plants need to live. Mars isn't so fortunate, so if we want oxygen on Mars we'll have to make it ourselves. That's what MOXIE does.

What is ISRU?

The "I" in MOXIE stands for ISRU, or In Situ Resource Utilization. "In Situ" refers to the stuff that's there – on Mars in this case. Resource Utilization means using that stuff for some productive purpose, usually to make something that we would otherwise have to bring with us. In other words, living off the land (LOL). Maybe LOL would have been a better acronym than ISRU, but that's already been taken! One example of ISRU might be making bricks out of Martian soil, and using the bricks for buildings. Another example is making oxygen out of the thin Martian air.

How does MOXIE work?

MOXIE is an example of a "solid oxide electrolyzer cell," which is a fuel cell that runs in reverse. In a fuel cell, fuel and oxygen react to make energy (electricity) and a stable chemical product. The most common example is the hydrogen fuel cell, used in some automobiles, which combines hydrogen and oxygen to make water and electricity.
Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) - NASA Mars
Nearly everything that uses fuel to make energy uses oxygen to burn that fuel, whether it's a car, a campfire, or a rocket. And it turns out that the oxygen, which on Earth we get for free from the air, actually weighs a lot more than the fuel itself.
When we send the first crew to Mars, we would need to think about how to bring them home at the end of their visit. And the single biggest user of oxygen in their entire stay on Mars will be the rocket that takes them back to orbit. While the astronauts may breathe 2 to 3 tons of oxygen in their 18-month stay on the planet, the ascent rocket would use 25 to 30 tons.

How much oxygen does MOXIE make?

MOXIE was designed to make at least 6 grams of oxygen per hour. The maximum it can make is 12 grams per hour, although there isn't enough CO2 at our high-altitude Jezero crater landing site to make much more than 10. For comparison, you're probably using about 10 grams per hour while you're reading this explanation (unless you're riding your exercise bike while you're reading)!
Why so little? It takes a lot of power to pull apart CO2 molecules, and the Perseverance rover only provides about 100 Watts. That's not much more than the computer you're using to read this. If we're to make useful amounts of oxygen in the future, we'll need a much larger power plant.

What does a MOXIE run look like?

The "solid oxide" in a solid oxide electrolyzer cell is a ceramic made mostly of zirconia that is heated to 1,472 degrees Fahrenheit (800 degrees Celsius) inside a special miniature oven. When MOXIE runs, it first has to heat up that ceramic to its operating temperature. That takes about two hours. The rover batteries have enough available charge left to make oxygen for about an hour after that. During that hour, we sometimes change the voltage or the compressor speed to learn more about the instrument.
When MOXIE runs, very little else gets done on Perseverance.
Todos los instrumentos científicos están a bordo para la misión Europa Clipper - NASA Ciencia
Un generador de imágenes aparte para medir las temperaturas ayudará a los científicos a identificar las regiones más cálidas donde el agua o los depósitos de hielo recientes podrían estar cerca de la superficie.Un espectrómetro generador de imágenes cartografiará los hielos, las sales y las moléculas orgánicas en la superficie de la luna. El sofisticado conjunto de generadores de imágenes también será compatible con todo el conjunto de instrumentos mediante la recopilación de imágenes que proporcionarán el contexto para el conjunto de datos que serán recopilados.Por supuesto, los científicos también necesitan una mejor comprensión de la propia capa de hielo. Esta cubierta exterior —la cual se estima que tiene un espesor de unos 15 a 25 kilómetros (10 a 15 millas)— podría ser geológicamente activa, lo que daría lugar a los patrones de fracturas que son visibles en la superficie. Utilizando el instrumento de radar, la misión estudiará la capa de hielo, incluyendo la búsqueda de agua dentro y debajo de ella. (La electrónica del instrumento ahora está a bordo de la nave espacial, mientras que sus antenas serán montadas en los paneles solares de la nave espacial en el centro Kennedy más adelante este año).Por último, está la estructura interior de Europa. Para aprender más al respecto, los científicos medirán el campo gravitatorio de la luna en diversos puntos de su órbita alrededor de Júpiter.
MASPEX | Instruments – NASA's Europa Clipper
By timing their transit through the instrument, MASPEX determines the ions' mass. The mass reveals each molecule's identity to help determine whether Europa is habitable.

Interact with an isolated view of the instrument.

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How It Works
How It Works
MASPEX generates high-energy (fast moving) electrons to strip electrons from incoming gas molecules. That makes the gas molecules into positively-charged ions. The instrument accelerates the ions to a uniform amount of energy. The ionized gases are pulled into the "drift tube," which gives MASPEX its baguette-like length. The lighter the ion, the faster it can move through the drift tube.
MASPEX bounces the ions back and forth several times in the drift tube before the instrument detects them. The total distance they travel increases their difference in arrival time, magnifying their mass difference. It’s like two siblings in a footrace. Racing across their backyard they might finish at almost the same time. But if they run around the block, their difference in speed is easier to observe.

“Only together can the instruments crack the mystery of whether Europa can support life.”

- James Burch, MASPEX principal investigator – a planetary scientist and experimental space physicist at SwRI

How We'll Use It
How We'll Use It
MASPEX will gain crucial answers from gases near Europa, such as the chemistry of Europa’s surface, atmosphere, and suspected ocean. MASPEX will study how Jupiter's radiation alters Europa's surface compounds and how the surface and ocean exchange material.
“MASPEX has a mass resolution hundreds of times finer than anything that’s flown to space before,” said MASPEX principal investigator James Burch, a planetary scientist and experimental space physicist at the Southwest Research Institute.
Carbon monoxide and molecular nitrogen have nearly equal atomic mass. But the energy binding their atoms alters their mass in telltale ways. MASPEX uses that mass defecit to identify molecules. It also differentiates isotopes – atoms with equal numbers of protons but a different number of neutrons.
Meet the Team
Meet the Team
Juno - NASA Science
Its hexagonal main body measures about 11.5 feet high and wide (3.5 meters), and the “blades” – actually huge solar arrays – give it an overall width exceeding 66 feet (20 meters).  Juno’s rotation keeps it stable in flight – the way a spinning top or gyroscope remains steady – as the spacecraft spins twice per minute for science operations, which it increased to five rotations per minute when it performed main-engine maneuvers. Also, Juno’s instruments are all fixed, so the rotating spacecraft gives each of them regular turns at their targets during close passes over Jupiter, a trip that takes about two hours from pole to pole. The instruments Juno carries in its toolbox: Microwave Radiometer (MWR): To measure the abundance of water and ammonia in the deep layers of Jupiter’s atmosphere, obtain a temperature profile of the atmosphere, and make surface and subsurface observations of Jupiter’s moons Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM): A spectrometer to provide images of auroras in Jupiter’s upper atmosphere, and observations of the composition and temperature of the surface of Jupiter’s moons.