This AI Robot Can Make Oxygen on Mars, Astronauts Don’t Need to Worry Anymore

Humans who travel to space need oxygen to breathe and return to Earth. However, astronauts no longer seem to have to worry about running out of oxygen on Mars.

Now, a team of scientists has designed a robot that can extract oxygen from water on Mars. This innovation was reported by researchers in a journal Nature Synthesis.

Oxygen Generating AI Robot

The robot is known as an AI chemist. This AI robot uses a machine learning model to find compounds that can trigger oxygen-producing chemical reactions on Mars.

This compound is known as a catalyst and is made entirely from elements found in Martian meteorites. If the system can work well, then explorers in space will not need to carry oxygen, as reported on the Smithsonian Magazine page.

“If you think about the challenge of going to Mars, then you have to work with local materials,” explains chemist Andy Cooper Nature News.

The Martian atmosphere contains only a small amount of oxygen. But experts detected liquid under the ice sheet in the south of the planet and water ice beneath the surface.

In this way, researchers found a way to create oxygen on Mars. Simply put, researchers can split water into hydrogen and oxygen molecules using materials found on Mars.

How AI Robots Work

Their robot analyzed five meteorites from Mars or those with a composition similar to its surface. Researchers identified large amounts of iron, nickel, calcium, magnesium, aluminum and manganese.

With these six elements or components, the robot can determine that it is capable of producing more than 3.7 million molecules to break down water into oxygen on Mars.

To determine the best formula, the robot analyzed the data with machine learning algorithms and theoretical models to test around 243 catalysts.

“On Earth, we don’t use these six elements, because we have more choices,” explains researcher Yi Luo from the University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei in New Scientist.

“These six elements are not the best for this kind of catalyst because they limit their performance, but that’s what’s on Mars,” he added.

This system can produce oxygen from Martian material at temperatures around -37^oC. This shows that chemical reactions can be carried out on the surface of Mars, even without the help of human hands.

“We think our robotic machine can exploit compounds in Mars without human guidance,” explained research leader Jun Jiang from the University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei in Nature News.

Comparison of Other Systems

Another study published on September 6 has succeeded in creating a small amount of oxygen used for breathing on Mars. An instrument called MOXIE succeeded in creating oxygen at a rate of six grams per hour during testing in 2021. This device works by heating carbon dioxide from the Martian atmosphere.

According to MOXIE Principal Investigator, Michael Hecht, it would be easier to use the MOXIE system rather than an AI robot to produce oxygen.

For this reason, in this latest research, it must be confirmed whether AI robots can work in an environment that is very different from Earth.

“Making a robot function is not trivial, because it requires many parts to work together,” explained Ross King, an automation researcher from the Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Cambridge.

King underlined that it would likely be easier to design robot materials on Earth and send them to Mars than to assemble them there. However, he agreed that autonomous ‘chemist’ robots could play a very important role as a communication bridge to Earth from space.

Watch Video “NASA’s Small Box Oxygen Production on Mars“
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