MIT PhD candidate Lanie McKinney, now in her fifth year with the Aerospace Plasma Group, is studying a small reactor that uses cold plasma to split carbon dioxide into oxygen and carbon monoxide, according to an MIT News report published on September 18, 2026. The work sits within in-situ resource utilization, an approach to producing supplies from resources already present on Mars rather than transporting everything from Earth.

McKinney said the conversion step works well, but the resulting mixture still needs separating before the oxygen can be isolated. Her current research pairs the plasma reactor with an oxygen-selective membrane intended to extract oxygen quickly. The integration is not well understood, and she said the team is unsure how the reactive plasma environment will affect the membrane. The technology could eventually serve life support and propellant production; it has not been demonstrated as an operational plant, and no crewed Mars mission has taken place.

Separately, McKinney co-led MIT's CERBERUZ team, which recently won first prize in Phase 2 of NASA's LunaRecycle Challenge, earning $775,000 for a system that grinds mixed trash into a powder reusable through injection molding for spare parts and 3D-printing filament. She has also taken part in MIT's Space Resources Workshop and a space architecture course.