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 On Mars, NASA produced enough oxygen to keep an astronaut alive for 100 minutes.

Future crewed missions now have enough oxygen for around 100 minutes according to NASA's MOXIE experiment on Mars.

In 2021, NASA's test to create breathable oxygen on Mars produced enough oxygen for around 100 minutes. It will now be expanded to accommodate upcoming human exploration.

A tiny oxygen-producing gadget called the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) was launched onto Mars in February 2021 by the Perseverance rover.

During that year, MOXIE was able to consistently create 15 minutes of oxygen per hour under a range of challenging planetary settings over the course of seven-hour-long production runs. This totaled 50 grams of oxygen, which is equivalent to 100 minutes worth of breathing oxygen for one astronaut.

According to Michael Hecht, co-leader of the MOXIE experiment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Haystack Observatory, "At the highest level, this is really a wonderful success."

Hecht claims that MOXIE continues to produce high-purity oxygen day or night, in various extreme temperatures, and after a dust storm.

The NASA team is currently working to develop a larger version of the device that would be able to produce enough oxygen to power a rocket back to Earth in addition to providing enough life support for a crewed voyage to Mars.

In order to pull carbon dioxide from the Martian atmosphere, MOXIE needs pumps, compressors, and heaters that can elevate the air's temperature to 800°C (1470°F).

The oxygen gas is then released after the equipment separates the oxygen atoms from the carbon dioxide and has been measuring it with MOXIE.

Gerald Sanders at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, warns that scaling up this technique will present some difficulties.

One of these is the ability to insulate a larger MOXIE version in order to control its interior temperature. Another is to make sure the device heats up evenly in order to prevent it from breaking.

Additionally, according to Sanders, MOXIE's runs have only lasted an hour each, but an oxygen device that can support a human expedition would need to run constantly for around 400 days.

No matter the technology, he remarks, "that's a lot of hours to put on the hardware."

Nevertheless, Sanders claims that MOXIE's first year of success has been a significant step in demonstrating the technology's potential.

NASA is now testing the required equipment at a scale appropriate for a human mission. The larger model's size, which is probably around a cubic meter, shouldn't be an issue for launches.