NASA’s Perseverance Rover Starts Extracting Oxygen on Mars

The Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) instrument is lowered into NASA’s Perseverance rover. (Photo via NASA/JPL-Caltech)

The aim is to isolate and store oxygen as a fuel, but it might one day help provide breathable air for astronauts.

By Stephanie Mlot

NASA’s Perseverance rover hit another milestone this week when it converted a sample of the Red Planet’s thin, carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere into oxygen.