Chapter 1006 Mars Operation.
After unfolding the backup life support unit, Jiang Xinlin checked the inflated living cabin.
The living cabin that was originally folded and shrunk together has now expanded into a semi-cylindrical 'tent'.
This kind of 'short-term' temporary base cannot allow astronauts or scientific researchers to carry out activities without any protection like the lunar outpost scientific research station base or the space station.
It is more like a tent for outdoor activities on earth, providing temporary shelter, protection, equipment storage, blocking wind and rain, maintaining temperature and other functions.
After all, it is on Mars, where the farther distance from the sun and the thinner atmosphere make it difficult to preserve radiation and temperature.
Compared to the Earth, the temperature difference on Mars is greater.
The Corinto Crater, their chosen landing site, is located on the Elysium Planitia at the equator of Mars. During the day, the temperature can reach close to 20°C under the sun's rays, which sounds pretty good.
But at night, the temperature here can plummet to minus 80 degrees Celsius, which is much colder than the coldest poles on the earth.
In addition to the huge temperature difference between day and night, the harsh environment on Mars is also an important factor affecting astronauts’ activities and investigations there.
For example, during the summer months of June and July every year, Mars storms can be seen almost everywhere on fire.
Although the atmosphere of Mars is much thinner than that of the Earth, there is no large satellite like the moon.
However, affected by temperature differences and other factors, the activity of the Martian atmosphere is not low.
Many times the atmosphere on Mars undergoes violent global movements, raising large amounts of dust and forming the famous Martian storm.
Every Martian year, hundreds of regional dust storms occur all over the planet. These dust storms carry a large amount of tiny dust and gravel, blocking the sky and the sun.
Although most of the time, these dust storms are mainly concentrated on the edges of the carbon dioxide ice caps in the North and South Poles and in the subtropical plateau areas.
But occasionally, these regional sandstorms expand into global ones.
For example, in the early 1970s, a global super dust storm occurred on Mars.
This Martian storm named "The Great Dust Bowl of 1971" first started as a yellow cloud in the mid-latitudes of the southern hemisphere in mid-September, and then expanded to the entire Mars in early October.
At that time, except for the bright areas of the ice caps at the north and south poles, the rest of the surface was covered by sandstorms. Even the most advanced telescopes at that time could not clearly see the surface of Mars.
For astronauts and manned missions, once they encounter such a super dust storm, the impact will be fatal.
Standing in front of the colony module, after deploying the life support unit, Jiang Xinlin connected to the communication satellite above his head, and then transferred the signal to the Hanhai space shuttle.
"This is the fire boarding team, I am Jiang Xinlin."
"I have successfully arrived at the 'Mengzhou Life Support Unit', the residential module has been deployed and completed, and everything is going well at present. Found any problems or equipment failures.”
After finishing the work report as concisely as possible, Jiang Xinlin recorded the brief message into the memory chip inside the spacesuit.
They are pioneers, and all their actions on Mars will provide valuable Mars exploration data for those who come after.
After a while, the voice from the Hanhai came through his headset.
"This is Hanhai, I am Gui Haichao. The communication has been received and the recording is completed."
After a pause, Gui Haichao, who stayed on the space shuttle, continued: "Hanhai The first batch of supplies will be released in two hours. The delivery coordinates have been sent, please check. ”
“Received! ”
While Jiang Xinlin was dealing with the deployment of the Mengzhou life support unit, on the other side, the Yinghuo 2 launch module, and Liu Yang, the leader of the team, was collecting rock, soil and other samples not far from the launch module.
At the same time, another astronaut Tang Hongbo was driving another Mars rover, carrying detection equipment, along a straight trajectory into the vast Gobi Desert.
Behind the rover, a box with wheels is also towed.
That is a small mobile drilling equipment, designed by the Aerospace Research Institute of Xinghai Research Institute.
And his destination is the "underground ice" about eight kilometers away from the Yinghuo 2 landing module.
According to the results of the last unmanned exploration mission, there may be an ice reservoir fifteen meters underground around the main impact crater and the secondary crater about ten kilometers away from their current area.
Tang Hongbo's main task is to go to the location of this underground ice layer, confirm its existence, and detect whether there are relatively easy-to-exploit water ice resources in the surrounding area.
Although they brought enough water resources for this manned lighting project, water resources are the first thing that must be ensured for the subsequent establishment of an outpost scientific research base on Mars.
It means fresh water resources and oxygen, which are the most fundamental material basis for the operation of the entire artificial ecosystem.
In addition to water resources, the remaining core resource is energy.
If the Hanhai space shuttle can successfully land on Mars, then the energy problem will be greatly alleviated.
Although the small controllable nuclear fusion reactor carried on the space shuttle is much smaller than the large commercial power stations on the earth, the energy they can produce is not at the same level. .
But after all, it is a serious magnetic confinement ignition device, which releases stellar-level energy.
For Mars exploration, a small fusion reactor is enough to meet all early energy needs.
Even if they build the Yuehuatai outpost scientific research base on the moon, a small fusion reactor is enough to support thousands of people to move around and conduct scientific research experiments at the same time.
However, they did not place all their hopes on the Hanhai space shuttle to successfully land on Mars.
If the former does not go so smoothly, they have a backup plan.
That is, the most popular renewable energy sources such as "solar energy" and "wind energy".
Although Mars is farther away from the sun than the Earth, it is not that easy to collect and utilize solar energy.
But overall this is not unfeasible.
At least by laying some photovoltaic solar panels near the equator, some solar energy can still be collected during the day.
Not much, but it is enough for a small number of early scientific expedition teams to board the fire.
As for wind energy, although the atmosphere on Mars is thin and turbid, the atmosphere on Mars is not low in activity.
Especially in the summer of June, July, August, September every year, Mars is close to the sun, and the activity of the atmosphere being illuminated by the sun is the highest in the year.
It is also possible to convert wind energy into electrical energy through specific equipment. But compared to solar energy, which is more convenient and simple, wind energy is still a lot more troublesome.
With a distance of less than eight kilometers, the rover drove for more than two hours.
Compared to driving on earth, the speed of the Mars rover can be described as crawling. Even an adult man can jog faster than this speed.
But compared to other Mars rovers and alien probes, this speed is not slow, and can even be said to be as fast as flying.
For example, the Zhurong Mars Exploration Rover that landed on Mars in 2021 has a speed of 40 meters per hour.
This speed is slower than the moving speed of a turtle, which averages about 60 meters per hour.
There is also the Perseverance Mars rover previously launched by the United States. Its maximum traveling speed is only 120 meters per hour.
This was tested by Perseverance on a flat road.
Compared to these 'predecessors', the Yinghuo series of Mars rovers that landed on Mars with the Yinghuo landing module are much faster.
Especially because there is a big guy weighing more than a ton behind this rover.
The Yinghuo 2 Mars rover was parked firmly at the target coordinates, and Tang Hongbo, wearing a Mars spacesuit, jumped out of the vehicle.
Then, he quickly removed the detection equipment, drilling equipment, storage bags and other things fixed on the Mars rover.
Finding a seemingly flat place, Tang Hongbo deployed these devices at different points.
Immediately, he pressed the communication button on the spacesuit.
“Call Hanhai, this is the Yinghuo 2 launch team, I am Tang Hongbo.”
"It is now 12:15 noon on August 1st, Earth time. I have arrived at the Cabro secondary crater near the Corinto meteorite and am about to start exploration and sampling operations."
Brief introduction After the work report was given, Tang Hongbo took off a flat plate from the Mars rover and then operated it on the electromagnetic pulse radar equipment.
The electromagnetic pulse radar he used also has a name, called 'ice radar'. It is a ground-penetrating radar that uses electromagnetic pulses for covert detection, and can effectively detect the accurate situation underground.
Soon, the electromagnetic pulse radar detection operations began.
The principle of this detection equipment is mainly based on the process of emission, reflection and reception of electromagnetic waves.
Simply put, radar can generate a short-duration, high-power pulse signal through a transmitter, which is emitted in the form of radio waves through an antenna.
When the pulse signal encounters the target object, it will be reflected back to form an echo signal. The echo signal returns along the same path as the transmitted signal and is received by the radar's receiving antenna.
Just like a bat, it uses ultrasonic waves to determine whether there are obstacles on its flight route, etc.
But compared to bats, which can only make simple judgments, the electromagnetic pulse radar optimized and designed by scientific researchers has more functions.
For example, more extensive measurement of the distance, diameter, and even properties of single or multiple objects, etc.
Just like by measuring the characteristics of the received signals, the conditions of the mineral resources underground can be inferred.
After skillfully controlling the tablet in his hand and confirming that there was no problem with the detection work of the electromagnetic pulse radar, Tang Hongbo waited for a while.
After a while, the preliminary detection data of the electromagnetic pulse radar was transmitted back.
"Call the Hanhai space shuttle, this is Tang Hongbo, the electromagnetic pulse radar detection data of the coordinates of the Cabro secondary crater has been uploaded."
"Hanhai received it and has uploaded it. to the central computer, processing is in progress ”
"Received."
After a brief contact, Tang Hongbo first shut down the operation of the electromagnetic pulse radar.
Immediately, he walked to the small mobile drilling equipment.
After skillfully controlling this equipment, which is less than half a meter high, four structures similar to the supporting legs of a crane slowly extended out next to the roller device of the drilling equipment.
This is the ‘anchor’ that holds the drilling equipment to the ground.
Soon, the four 'anchors' were drilled into the soil and rock formations of Mars. After the mechanical equipment automatically confirmed that there were no problems, the drilling equipment began operations.
Unlike conventional drilling tools on Earth, after the mobile drilling equipment fixed itself, it slowly stretched out a spiral drilling arm diagonally to the side.
Following this, the rotating drill bit began to work, and the Martian soil and dust on the surface in contact with it were carried around.
With the flying dust, pieces of samples were dug out from the ground.
Although this small drilling equipment is smaller than an adult man, in fact, its value is more expensive than a hundred-dollar bill of the same weight.
If I remember correctly, the total weight of this mobile drilling equipment when on earth was about 1.2 tons.
However, on Mars, considering that Mars has only about one-third of the gravity of Earth, it is only 400 kilograms.
One ton of hundred-yuan bills is about 86,956,500 yuan, which is about 87 million. 400 kilograms of hundred-yuan bills are worth about 30 million.
The R&D and production costs of this set of mobile drilling equipment far exceed this number, reaching an astonishing 80 million RMB.
Although it is so expensive, money is spent wisely.
This small mobile drilling equipment can drill a full 5 meters deep into the ground for core sampling when it is fully automated for drilling sampling.
And if the borehole pipe is added with manual assistance, the maximum depth of borehole sampling can be more than 20 meters!
Although drilling a hole 20 meters deep on Earth is nothing, this is Mars!
Being able to drill out a rock core from a depth of 20 meters on Mars is, without exaggeration, a new historical record.
If there is any flaw, it is that its operating speed is a bit slow.
The Hanhai space shuttle has finished analyzing the electromagnetic pulse radar detection data, and the drilling depth here has only reached about five meters.
Judging from previous exploration data, this depth is obviously not enough to reach the icehouse buried underground.