Reliability Optimization of a Mars Oxygen Production Plant

Abstract

The Mars Oxygen ISRU Experiment (MOXIE) is an instrument onboard NASA’s Perseverance rover. On April 20th, 2021, MOXIE generated oxygen on Mars from the carbon dioxide present in the Martian atmosphere, demonstrating, for the first time, in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) on the surface of another celestial body. Learnings from MOXIE on Mars have aided in the design of a scaled-up version of MOXIE. Oxygen generated from this scaled-up system would be used as propellant in a Mars Ascent Vehicle that would enable the crew to return to Earth once their mission was complete, as well as in life support systems. Failure of any of its subsystems would result in a loss of mission due to the inability of the crew to return to Earth. Accordingly, risk analysis is one of the most crucial steps in the design of the scaled-up MOXIE that must be completed and understood before building and launching the system to Mars. The intent of this paper is to present a comprehensive, quantitative analysis of the operational risks associated with this Mars ISRU plant. We then present an approach to optimize the reliability of each subsystem using a modified probabilistic risk assessment and heuristics-based optimization algorithm.