Die on Mars

The United Space Station is at an altitude of 300 kilometers.

The Eagle spacecraft is still 2,033 kilometers away from the capture point.

"Miss Ophiopogon japonicus! Your body indicators are abnormal! Can you still hold on?" The old cat saw the warning on the computer. Various physiological data of Ophiopogon japonicus were approaching the limit, the heart rate was accelerating, and the blood pressure was rising.

"It's okay... Mr. Cat, I'm... okay..."

Maidong answered, her eyes were slightly open, her eyeballs were severely congested, and her vision was black.

The Orion spacecraft was still shaking violently, like a ship bumping in a storm. There was a loud creaking sound coming from somewhere. It sounded like a certain structure had been violently twisted and was screaming before it broke.

Looking through the porthole, you can see the brown-red land of Mars. The rising sun illuminates everything. The hundreds of kilometers of valleys and ravines are just fine and superficial lines when viewed from a 300-kilometer-high orbit. The majestic and majestic world rushed towards us at this moment, and Ophiopogon japonicus liked this scenery very much.

Witnessing this extraordinary scene that no one can imagine is like the sublimation of the soul.

But now it's hard for her to even open her eyes. The violent tremors are making her internal organs and lungs churn. Maidong doesn't know how long this state will last. She feels that if she continues like this, she will die here sooner or later. .

Ophiopogon japonicus, hold on! hold onto!

She said to herself silently in her heart.

Two thousand kilometers away.

The Eagle spacecraft was gliding unpowered on the track, turning somersaults as it flew.

The lander's exhaust computer had no idea how big of a trap it had created. It received the data from each of the spacecraft's sensors step by step, and then sent it out through the antenna. Although the attitude of the Eagle spacecraft has been completely unstable and is rolling and turning, the computer still thinks that it is flying normally - this is because the old cat has turned off its control function of the attitude control rocket.

The old cat completely cut off the control of the engine of the Eagle spacecraft computer. It did not dare to let the exhaust computer touch the rocket. The Eagle spacecraft now only has less than 20% of the fuel left. These fuels are the key to the final docking. If the computer gets mad again and randomly fires the engine twice, running out of propellant, it's all over.

It was too late to temporarily check and fix the bugs in the program, so the old cat simply castrated the system computer.

Ten minutes countdown.

"Start the RD-0172 engine and start adjusting your attitude!"

Lao Mao issued instructions at the Kunlun Station, and the signal was transmitted to the lander through the relay satellite. The rocket engine started, and the high-speed jet pushed back in the direction of the Eagle spacecraft's roll, working with the gyroscope to gradually curb the lander's roll speed.

This is the only propellant left in RD-0172. Use as little as possible.

Lao Mao watched as the central axis of the lander gradually coincided with the intended direction. At the same time, the fuel gauge on the screen dropped all the way, from 19% to 16% to 14%, and soon entered the red warning zone. Lao Mao was worried. A sweat.

"CONSISTENT PATH!"

The red window flashed, and then the attitude control engine shut down! Turn around!

"Slow down!" the old cat shouted angrily. The altitude of the space station is 290 kilometers, and the Eagle spacecraft is still 507 kilometers away from the capture point!

The relative speed between the Eagle spacecraft and the space station is as high as 20 meters per second. The old cat must slow down its speed. RD-0172 is launched for the last time. This outstanding Russian-made rocket finally reaches the end of its life. This battlefield The veteran fired his last bullet. It exhausted the last fuel in the tank, let out a last roar, and pushed back the Eagle spacecraft with all its strength!

"Comrade RD-0172, uh-huh!" the old cat yelled, "stop it!"

The relative speed of the Eagle spacecraft dropped rapidly.

The data was refreshed, and the computer once again gave the trajectory prediction of the Eagle spacecraft and the space station.

The lander's trajectory is shown as a blue line.

The trajectory of the space station is shown as a red line.

The two lines are almost perfectly tangent at the center of the screen. At the moment of meeting, the estimated altitude of the Eagle spacecraft is 284,633 meters, and the estimated altitude of the Joint Space Station is 284,696 meters.

There is still a gap of 63 meters.

The Joint Space Station is sixty-three meters taller than the lander.

In other words, the Eagle spacecraft will pass under the feet of the space station, and the two will pass by each other.

"Sixty-three meters difference?" Maidong was surprised, "Can the height of the space station continue to decrease?"

"No, it's too late to fine-tune the attitude of the space station now. Lowering the altitude rashly may cause the lander to directly hit the space station. The Eagle spacecraft has completely exhausted its propellant and we can't control it." Old Cat shook his head, " However, this error is within our expectations.”

"Then what should we do now?" the girl asked, "Isn't there still a gap of more than sixty meters? How should we connect?"

"We're not connecting!" the old cat replied.

"Not connected?" Maidong was stunned.

"Yes, we never said we would dock with it. The lander is out of control and the relative speed is too high, so the docking will inevitably fail." Old Cat said, "We want to capture it!"

"Capture? How to capture?" Maidong was confused and didn't know what this meant.

Tang Yue's voice appeared on the channel, and he and Lao Mao said in unison: "Super big arms!"

·

·

·

Super big arms.

The official name is the Mars Space Station Remotely Operated Manipulator System (MSSRMS). It is also known as the Canada Super Arm (Canadarm70). It is the longest and most massive space robotic arm ever built by humans. Its predecessors have outstanding achievements. Canadarm2, the Canadian robotic arm on the old International Space Station.

But the robotic arm installed on the ISS is only nineteen meters long, while the big arm on the Mars Joint Space Station is a full seventy meters long!

There are many robotic arms on the Joint Space Station, but this one is the largest and most conspicuous. It is manufactured by the Canadian Space Agency. Its main structural material is a composite material of metal aluminum and epoxy resin. It has twelve degrees of freedom, is very light and It is flexible and installed at the most stable and strongest position in the center of the truss. The platform at the end of the boom can carry multiple astronauts at the same time to maintain and repair the space station and spacecraft.

The reason why the big arm on the Mars Joint Space Station is so long is entirely because the Orion spacecraft is too huge. If the robotic arm is too short, it will not be able to reach it, and it will be very inconvenient to maintain.

People from CSA once slapped the table and yelled at NASA over this thing: "Seventy meters! Seventy meters! Do you know what seventy meters is? Let me tell you, even if I jump out of this window and die outside, You wouldn’t be stupid enough to create such a thing!”

NASA: Do you want to do it? If you don't want to do it, we will contact the CNSA.

CSA: I do.

Maidong turned her head blankly and looked out the window. She could see the huge white robotic arm slowly opening, the joints and bearings rotating and locking, and then slowly leaving the truss. The girl suddenly realized that Tang Yue and Lao Mao were thinking What to do.

This was the last resort of Tang Yue and Lao Mao. No wonder it was a crazy attempt... They were not trying to dock with the Eagle spacecraft, but to capture the aircraft!