Washington DC, May 3: MOXIE is a toaster-sized piece of equipment that was carried in Perseverance, the six-wheeled robot to Mars.
Its main job is to break off the oxygen atoms from carbon dioxide molecules to help convert Mars’s thin, carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere into oxygen. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is broken down into Carbon Monoxide (CO) and Oxygen (O).
This instrument will run for a day at a time and can produce 10 grams of oxygen in an hour. The waste product, which is carbon monoxide, is emitted into the atmosphere of Mars.
It gets its energy from the Perseverance rover. As Perseverance must also perform other tasks, Moxie cannot run continuously. It will get a chance to run nine more times over the next Mars year.
