Mars Oxygen In Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) has been successfully converting carbon dioxide (CO2) from the martian atmosphere into oxygen (O2).
MOXIE is part of the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover and has operated seven times in 18 months.
MOXIE has ability to reliably produce oxygen at any time of day and during any season on Mars.
The primary demonstration goal of MOXIE is to produce oxygen, one of the two components of rocket propellant.
Returning a mission crew to Earth might require more than 30 tons of oxygen, which is too much weight to carry on board.
Therefore, a scaled-up version of MOXIE would be sent to Mars ahead of a planned mission and operated continuously to produce oxygen reserves that would become rocket propellant