The Mars Society is pleased to announce that Dr. Michael Hecht, Principal Investigator for NASA Perseverance’s MOXIE (Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment) instrument, will give a virtual address about the project to the 24th Annual International Mars Society Convention, scheduled for October 14-17, 2021.
As part of the growing list of “firsts” for NASA’s Perseverance rover on the surface of Mars, MOXIE successfully converted air from the Red Planet’s thin, carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere into oxygen in April, laying the groundwork for future human exploration and settlement of the planet.
This technology demonstration was designed to ensure the instrument survived the launch from Earth and landing with Perseverance in February 2021. NASA expects MOXIE to extract oxygen several more times over the course of the next two years.
The MOXIE experiment was developed in collaboration with researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Haystack Observatory, led by Dr. Hecht, and the school’s Department of Aeronautics & Astronautics, as well as engineers at NASA-JPL. Prior to joining MIT in 2012, Dr. Hecht worked as a senior research scientist at JPL for nearly 30 years.
This year’s virtual Mars Society convention will be free of charge (although donations are welcomed). For more details about the online event and how to register, please click here. Convention updates, including the list of confirmed speakers, will be posted on the Mars Society web site and social media platforms in the coming weeks.
