The farther the destination, the more fuel a rocket needs. The more fuel the rocket carries, the heavier the spacecraft. The heavier the spacecraft, the more fuel it requires to launch.
The CryoFILL (Cryogenic Fluid In-Situ Liquefaction for Landers) project could transform the way NASA fuels future space exploration missions, reducing costs and extending the duration of planetary surface operations.
"If you think about how much fuel your spacecraft would need to go to Mars and come home, it's quite a lot," said Evan Racine, CryoFILL project manager at NASA Glenn. "If we can produce and liquefy oxygen on the Moon or Mars, we can fuel landers on the surface where they land, reducing the amount of propellant needed to launch from Earth.
