Podcast: Breathing on Mars: MOXIE's Astounding Success

In this episode, we embark on a journey to the red planet and unveil the remarkable success of the NASA JPL MOXIE (Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment) mission on Mars. Join us as we explore how MOXIE has triumphantly demonstrated the production of oxygen from the Martian atmosphere, a monumental breakthrough for future Mars missions and colonization and discover the significance of this breathtaking achievement, its implications for sustaining human life on Mars, and the scientific marvel that is MOXIE.

This podcast is sponsored by Mouser Electronics. 

EPISODE NOTES

(3:00) - Breathtaking Success on Mars: MOXIE Experiment Delivers as Promised

This episode was brought to you by Mouser, our favorite place to get electronics parts for any project, whether it be a hobby at home or a prototype for work. Click HERE to learn more about the marvel that is the James Webb telescope and it’s incredible engineering design to withstand the brutality of space!

Transcript

What's going on party people? Welcome back to the Next Byte podcast. And today for the third and final time, we are talking about MOXIE, the NASA JPL experiment to generate oxygen from the Martian atmosphere. So, if you're excited to see how this trilogy is gonna end, then let's buckle up and get into it together.

I'm Daniel, and I'm Farbod. And this is the NextByte Podcast. Every week, we explore interesting and impactful tech and engineering content from Wevolver.com and deliver it to you in bite sized episodes that are easy to understand, regardless of your background. 

Farbod: All right, people, as you heard, we are talking about MOXIE. Once again, this is the third time. But before we get into today's episode, let's talk about today's sponsor, and that's gonna be Mouser Electronics. So, you guys know about Mouser. We've talked about Mouser, I don't know how many times at this point, but they're one of the world's biggest electronics suppliers, and we love talking about them, because by being one of the world's biggest electronics suppliers, they have access to a lot of cool information. They know people in academia, they know people in industry, and a lot of different organizations. And they write about these cool things that they know. One of the things they wrote about was the James Webb Telescope, right? We've linked it into our show notes. You should definitely check it out. If you love space like we do, which is kind of why we're talking about MOXIE to begin with, but they talk about how the James Webb Telescope is one of the largest telescopes ever made.

Daniel: I think it's the largest telescope ever made. Is that true?

Farbod: Hubble was the one before it, right? Yeah. Yeah, and this one's even bigger than that. So, it is the biggest telescope ever made and it is giving us so much insight about the start of our galaxy and the world. And it’s giving us so many cool iPhone backgrounds. Like there's so much to love about this telescope. But this article specifically gives us a little bit of insight about the engineering behind it, like what it took to get made and just how impressive it is to just survive this bizarrely harsh environment that is space. And yeah, if you're interested in space systems engineering and you're interested in space technology in general, then this is a fun one to check out.

Daniel: Well, I was just going to say, there's lots of crazy design considerations that go into designing something that's going to go into space. Mouser does a good job of laying out exactly what these are, harsh temperatures, et cetera. They even provide a list of space ready components that they already carry. So, I think that's awesome. We're all about equipping engineers and makers with the tools and the information they need to go do interesting things in the world. And Mouser also lives out that mission by quite literally giving you a list of parts that you could buy today and get it delivered to your house in a couple days from mouser. You can build a project that is like actually space rated, which I think is pretty cool.

Farbod: Yeah, the next time you want to build a cube set hit up mouser that got the parts you need.

Daniel: Yeah, for sure.

Farbod: And it's a perfect segue for this episode because we're talking about MOXIE, right? Now we've again, we've talked about moxie a couple times already what episode? 5 and episode 91. Yeah. So, I think when we did episode 5, one of the earliest episodes on this podcast, it was before they launched the mission, right? Episode 91 was two years afterwards?

Daniel: And it was when they first turned-on Moxie.

Farbod: Gotcha.

Daniel: But now we're here, we're back to talk about it for the last, probably the final time of MOXIE to talk about the results of the experiment. So, episode 5, we laid out the background for what's going on. Episode 91 we talked about, hey, this is awesome. They turned this machine on and it's actually working. And now, a year later after we've revisited MOXIE the second time, we've got a lot more information on how the experiment actually went. A lot of data on why this is significant. And I will say if you want to dive deeper, you can listen to episode 5, you can listen to episode 91. We're also going to try to do a good job of telling the full picture today. So don't feel like that's required listening before you start this one. This one should be sufficient for you to get the full picture all the way from why they're doing the experiment to the results that they got from it and what it means for the future.

Farbod: Yeah, this is going to be a good end to the Moxie trilogy. So, let's start at the beginning, right? As you mentioned, MOXIE is an experiment, but what is it an experiment for?

Daniel: Well, I think in general, we should talk about what MOXIE stands for.

Farbod: Oh, yes, right. Of course.

Daniel: MOXIE is the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment. You can kind of deduce it from the name what they're doing here, but they're trying to use resources that are on Mars to generate oxygen. And it's an experiment. It's not the production version of it. It's the first time they've ever done this. And it was actually a tiny little cube box that was attached to the Perseverance Rover that was again, touchdown on Mars in February 2021. And now here we are a couple of years later, we've got some results to share.

Farbod: Absolutely. Now, dear audience, you might be wondering why oxygen? And if you're like me, when I first read this article, it's like, oh, of course, humans need oxygen. We're going to space. We want something that can get us oxygen from its surroundings. And you're kind of on the money, right? Like that totally makes sense. We've had so many talks of setting up Martian colonies. So, it totally makes sense that we want to support the life on there. But there's an even I want to say like a bigger factor because human life is obviously important but rocket fuel is kind of like the prerequisite for a lot of our adventures, right?

Daniel: Well, yeah and that's what I was gonna say in general the challenge is just how awful it is to try and transport enough oxygen to mars to be able to support our endeavors.

Farbod: Absolutely.

Daniel: The obvious answer like you said is breathing but the sneaky answer that actually consumes way more oxygen than a couple of astronauts needing to breathe is like you said, rocket fuel, rocket fuel, can't combust, can't burn without oxygen. And as a result, when we send a rocket up into space, we have to include a lot of oxygen in that fuel to allow it to be able to combust. And it would basically be a lot of dead weight or a lot of extra weight to have to carry all this oxygen to Mars, whether it's for breathing, whether it's for a return flight or a flight to another planet. We need to figure out a way to generate oxygen on Mars otherwise, it's completely uneconomical to send humans to Mars or to send anything to Mars with plans of doing a return trip back to earth or flying to another planet, again, interplanetary travel, interplanetary man to travel, all of these, the prerequisite is having enough oxygen there at the location because it weighs way too much and it costs way too much to bring enough oxygen to do any of those activities otherwise.

Farbod: Absolutely. So now we got the driver from MOXIE down, right? Like we need oxygen. Let's just use our surroundings to get that oxygen. So how does MOXIE accomplish this? What is it? Well, you kind of alluded to it earlier, but it's a box. It's like the size of a toaster, essentially. And MOXIE intakes the air, the Martian air, and it goes through an electrochemical process that results in oxygen and carbon monoxide, right? The cool thing about MOXIE is that as it's about to exhaust these gases, it does an analysis on it to understand how pure that oxygen that it just extracted from the atmosphere actually is. And essentially the goal there is the Martian atmosphere, it has a lot of seasons and those seasons can have like catastrophic disasters for a system that's depending on this atmospheric condition to produce oxygen.

Daniel: And just some context there, The Mars, the Martian atmosphere, between let's say their winter and their summer changes in density over two times during that season, just because of the seasonality and the changes in temperature during the Martian year. So, if you're, again, if you're designing a system that relies on pooling air in from the atmosphere and turning that into a gas that you can utilize, it means a lot to be able to test it, not only at the different temperatures, but almost certainly. When we're talking about like an air compressor pulling air in and pushing it through this Electrolyte converter. It makes a lot of sense that they wanted to test it in the different seasons because if the atmosphere is a lot cooler and also twice as dense that's a big deal for this thing to be able to test during the all the seasons on Mars pretty much.

Farbod: Absolutely. And when we checked in last time during episode 91 when the mission had basically just started. They were also talking about not only they want to test during the different seasons, but during different times of day, like dusk and dawn to make sure they really have the grounds covered. Just like you're saying with the changes in temperature and the change changes in density. But the goal there was they were hoping that Moxie could generate anywhere between 6 to 10 grams of oxygen per hour.

Daniel: Which is about the same as a tree, which is pretty interesting.

Farbod: Exactly. So, where are we at now? We are in, you know, again, last year, episode 91, the experiment had just started. They wanted to run this thing 10 times over the course of one year. And now we have some results. So where are we at? How is MOXIE doing?

Daniel: Well, I think it's really interesting to talk about what they achieved and then also kind of what it means. But the what they achieved part, they achieved a total output. I'm looking at this up 122 total grams of oxygen over its year and a half about of operation. At its maximum operational capacity, it produced 12 grams of oxygen per hour, which is actually above this goal you were saying of 6 to 10 grams per hour. The consistent production target it also achieved, which is on average about 6 grams of oxygen per hour, which is comparable to the oxygen output of a standard tree, like I said. And then also I think the really important part here is that it was, you know, through all these trials and tribulations, varying volume production based on the density of the atmosphere in the time of day and the temperature, etc. It was still able to maintain its purity level of 98% or higher. So essentially long story short, MOXIE matched or exceeded both of its purity and volume targets during this experiment. And not only that, did it pretty consistently across the intense seasonal variations that happen on Mars.

Farbod: Right. And if I remember correctly from episode 5, another reason that this is impressive is because one of the components or actually several components on MOXIE were made from a specific alloy that was 3D printed to fit the geometry and the size and everything. And that alloy was very thermally resistant, which is why they picked it. And there were questions about if it could still have the same efficiency as it went through these extreme temperature differences. And here we are with the results that it can in fact withstand all of it. So, that's even more promising than where we were at two years ago. And I was already pretty excited about this.

Daniel: Yeah. I think it makes us feel like a lot of the “what ifs” we talked about in previous episodes and researchers have talked about for decades. And let's say maybe the last 5 to 10 years while they've been specifically creating MOXIE is, Hey, now we've got the ability to go to Mars, pull in the Martian atmosphere, which is really carbon dioxide rich and convert that into oxygen, which is a mission critical resource for our missions to Mars. So, they've established that they can do that. They've established that they can do it reliably with a 98% purity, which is crazy. They can also do that at or above the theoretical rates that they predicted. And they can do that through night and day, different temperatures, different seasons. Like you said, a lot of the trust that they placed in this 3D printed alloy to be resistant to all the different temperatures and still be effective. Now their dreams have come true. They've realized their dreams. They've proven their hypothesis that this really, really resilient alloy is going to be the key to unlocking this from MOXIE. And to make a long story really short, they drew something on the whiteboard, sent something onto Mars and tested it and proved that it was real.

Farbod: It worked better than they expected. So, the “so what” here first bullet point I have mission successful. Three exclamation points. This is awesome. Yeah. I'm so excited. Again, I was excited when we first talked about it. God knows like three years ago at this point, but now, you know, originally when they pitched this idea, this experiment, they were like, yeah, this is just a small-scale model, but if it ends up being a thing, it's going to be 200 times the size of this and it's something we'd want to deploy to satisfy those requirements that we talked. Oxygen for people, oxygen for fuel. So, what's next year? What is it that they would probably want to do now that they know this experiment works as expected?

Daniel: Well, what I was gonna say is to get to that 200x scale machine, which is obviously an awesome end goal, right? Send this thing on to Mars ahead of any future missions. You've got this thing operating consistently. It's pumping out oxygen around the clock. Storing it in tanks that we can use for rocket fuel. We can store it in tanks to make an oxygen rich atmosphere for astronauts to be able to breathe on manned missions to Mars, etc. The major technical challenge that they mentioned is the MOXIE that they designed for you so far, is really only meant to operate in these short bursts, collect enough oxygen to be able to run tests on it, and then it shuts off. The major technical hurdle there, they've got to be able to get something that runs intermittently, to something that runs consistently throughout all these temperatures, throughout those super harsh conditions on Mars, kind of going all the way back to what we talked about at the beginning of the episode, super harsh conditions in space, make something that withstands all that and runs consistently 99.99% uptime around the clock. That's something that will require a lot of additional engineering to get there. I'm sure they've already been working on it while they've been waiting for these results from MOXIE, but that's a non-trivial task, right? If you've, if anyone's worked in any type of like industrial engineering or manufacturing scenario, to do something once is awesome. And it proves the concept to be able to get the industrial machine working in a way that's super reliable and works around the clock and is able to consistently produce that output, no matter the conditions. That's a completely different technical challenge. And I'm excited. And I think this team's up for the challenge, but there's definitely a lot for them to digest there before we get to this future, we're producing oxygen around on Mars whenever we want on demand.

Farbod: Yeah. You know, putting our engineering hats on for a second. Do you think this is something they'd probably want to deploy like on the Martian surface, or do you think, you know, now that they have this proof of concept and data that it actually works in the real world, they would bring it back in the lab and stress test the heck out of it to see if it actually lives up to the longevity that they want it to.

Daniel: Yeah. I think that's definitely the future or their next step for development. I know they've already been doing that at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed by Caltech. We forgot to give a shout out. That makes me think, we forgot to give a shout out to the teams who are working on this. Led by a team from MIT, I think it's Michael Hecht is the principal investigator. He works at MIT's Haystack Observatory. Obviously, NASA JPL, which is managed by Caltech. They helped package this onto the Perseverance Rover. And then I also wanted to mention a startup called OxEon Energy. They're the ones that created the Solid Oxide Electrolyzer, the SOEC, which is like the secret sauce part of the inside of MOXIE that helps pressurize the air, you pass it through this SOEC electrolyzer and that's the electrolyzer that creates this electrochemical reaction to split the carbon monoxide and oxygen. Pretty interesting, but I wanted to shout out those three teams that were working on it. And again, like I said, I think they've already been using some similar type of test chamber at NASA JPL for development so far. But like you said, now that they've been able to correlate that with physical results on Mars, they can probably better simulate their further testing on Earth so that we don't spend millions of dollars to send something into Mars and have it crap out.

Farbod: Yeah. I'm with you. I don't know, man. I'm again, reflecting on what has been accomplished over these past three years, it makes me even more excited for what's to come in the next three. You know, like you said, what if we reach a point where we're deploying these cells onto the Martian surface to get stuff ready for the human inhabitants to come in, get set up, get some tomatoes growing, you know, I bet the Martian soul is rich for it.

Daniel: Yeah. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. I have no idea, but what I will say this isn't just a win for technology. The E in MOXIE was an experiment. We can say that the experiment was successful, but this is a game changer. MOXIE has proven its ability to turn this carbon dioxide, which is really plentiful and Mars's atmosphere, but it's not that useful to us. Turn that very plentiful, not so useful resource into something that currently on Mars is very, very scarce, but it's also very, very useful for our missions. It'll unlock our ability to do return flights from Mars, which is a huge deal for wanting to collect samples and analyze the soil and understand whether we can plant tomatoes in it or not. And then also the future of Mars colonization and human exploration on another planet, all that's super interesting as well and all relies on the fact that, or this assumption that we would have oxygen available to do it.

Farbod: For sure, for sure. So, let's do a quick recap of MOXIE, right? So, about a year ago, the Perseverance Rover had a little experiment on it. It was called MOXIE, this little box the size of a toaster. Now MOXIE's goal was to intake the Martian atmosphere, the air, the Martian air, and transform it into oxygen. Why oxygen? Well, you know, obviously for humans to breathe, if you want to do space missions but also more importantly for rocket fuel so that we can keep traveling. We can come back home instead of carrying that fuel with us. Now when scientists designed MOXIE, they had some idea of how well it would do, but they wanted to make sure that as the Martian seasons change, it's super hectic up there, it would perform as expected. And we're happy to report one year in, mission absolutely successful. It has done even better than the scientists expected.

Daniel: Nailed it, dude.

Farbod: I try. It's really helpful having a good co-host that really, you know, gets you going.

Daniel: Oh, shucks.

Farbod: Yeah.

Daniel: Let's just say, I think we owe a shout out to our, I think it's our Iberian friends in Spain, right?

Farbod: It is. You guys knocked it out of the park. We were like, what? 120?

Daniel: Yeah, definitely. I think within the top 150 podcasts in Spain, which is awesome. We appreciate everyone who's been a part of that.

Farbod: It's extra special to me because I love Iberian ham.

Daniel: That's what I was going to say. Yeah. Farbod and I didn't have ham for how long?

Farbod: It's 20 something years. And the first time I had it, it was Iberian ham. And you guys changed my world.

Daniel: Yeah, rocked his world. So, let's say thank you to our friends in Spain for their delicious ham, but also for helping us trend in that top 150 podcast there. And also thank you to everyone else who's been a part of this podcast journey. A couple of folks have reached out mentioning or asking, how can we help? One of the things that I want to say, best possible way you can help is leaving us a review that helps us climb the rankings in your country so we can give your country a shout out. But also, we promise to give anyone a shout out until we've got way way way too many reviews where we can't feasibly do this anymore. We promise to give a shout out to everyone who gives us a review so if you haven't done it yet we'd appreciate if you give it to us and we feel like we deserve 5 stars. We're doing our best to get there but if not, we'd also appreciate if you reach out to us the next byte at wevevolver.com. Tell us what to improve, maybe you hate the intro music, we can fix that. And then you can say, hey, I'm someone who helps prompt new intro music on the Next Byte.

Farbod: And you know what? We'll make a selfish promise. If you make us trend in your country that weekend, Daniel and I will enjoy a food from your country.

Daniel: There we go. And then we'll talk about the incredible story of having Iberian ham or maybe something else that's more interesting.

Farbod: That'll be our “thank you” to you. All right. Thank you, guys, for listening. And as always, we'll catch you next week.

Daniel: Peace.

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The Next Byte: We're two engineers on a mission to simplify complex science & technology, making it easy to understand. In each episode of our show, we dive into world-changing tech (such as AI, robotics, 3D printing, IoT, & much more), all while keeping it entertaining & engaging along the way.