MARS is used to produce and separate exotic nuclei. These nuclei are later used as radioactive beams or for nuclear decay studies. Radioactive Nuclear Beams are produced with MARS in kinematically inverted reactions induced by heavy projectiles from the K500 superconducting cyclotron on a cryogenic hydrogen gas target.

MARS has a good mass resolution and a very good beam rejection factor, leading to clean, high quality secondary beams. The secondary beams are used in the nuclear astrophysics, the reaction mechanisms and the fundamental interactions programs.