In-Situ Resource Utilization

Carrying everything from Earth makes Mars missions impossibly heavy and expensive. ISRU — In-Situ Resource Utilization — is the solution. Perseverance carries an experiment called MOXIE that successfully produced oxygen from Mars's CO2 atmosphere, proving the concept works on the Martian surface.

Future ISRU systems would extract water from subsurface ice deposits, electrolyze it into hydrogen and oxygen for rocket fuel and breathing air, and use Martian regolith for construction. A Starship-class lander could carry ISRU equipment to produce the return-trip fuel on Mars, dramatically reducing what needs to be launched from Earth.