More than 50 years after Neil Armstrong walked on the moon after traveling 240,000 miles in 76 hours, Perseverance Rover landed on Mars on February, 18 2021. It took seven months and traveled more than 292 million miles. A group of OxEon engineers anxiously watched the broadcast hoping to be a part of history. The historical moment came two months later, on April 20th, when a solid oxide electrolyzer, designed and constructed by OxEon Energy, accomplished the mission of electrolyzing the Martian atmosphere’s CO2 to generate oxygen, marking the first time in human history that a useful commodity was produced from extraterrestrial raw materials. This experiment called MOXIE, Mars In-situ Resource Utilization Experiment, is a test to produce oxygen for life support and for Mars Ascent Vehicle ensuring
extended exploration and safe return of astronauts. This groundbreaking achievement opens a new chapter in space exploration, offering the potential for producing essential resources (e.g., O2 and propellants) on extraterrestrial bodies, thereby enabling extended human presence and future missions beyond Earth’s orbit.
The combination of historical milestones like the moon landing and the breakthrough in in-situ resource production on Mars serves as a testament of striving to achieve the seemingly impossible. Pushing the boundaries of knowledge, understanding, and technological innovation has been at the heart of these missions. The drive for this accomplishment embodies the spirit of discovery, innovation, and perseverance in scientific and engineering advancements. This project brought in a world class team of experts to address many of the difficult challenges. The advances in the space resource field are directly applicable to addressing our own energy and environmental challenges.
16 мар 2024
