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From Michigan Tech to Mars

by | Jan 4, 2024

Summary

MTU Alumnus Jessica Elwell is the COO of OxEon Energy, the company responsible for the design, development and manufacturing of the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment or MOXIE. The device will play a pivotal role in researching if the Mars atmosphere can produce oxygen for future explorers to breathe and replicate.

Jessica Elwell once sat with her Senior Design team daydreaming about how they could solve all the problems of the world using thermodynamics. Now, she’s actually solving one of those problems by converting carbon dioxide into oxygen and sustainable fuels.

Elwell is chief operating officer of OxEon Energy, which designed, developed and manufactured the solid oxide electrolyzer at the heart of the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment — or MOXIE. The device was named one of Time magazine’s Best Inventions of 2023.

Elwell remembers the moment she came around the bend in Chassell, Michigan, headed toward her first campus visit and thinking, “Oh, this is home now. This is where I need to be.”

Read the article in full here.

Michigan Technological University

Since 1991, the Michigan Manufacturing Technology Center has assisted Michigan's small and medium-sized businesses to compete and grow. Today, we are celebrating 30 years of building super highways of competitive success for our clients, where there were once only slow and lonely dirt roads. Now, we stand ready to face the future with bountiful optimism, focused purpose, strong determination, legions of support staff and inspired creativity.‍

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