Chapter 543 - 532: Delay of Ten Minutes_1

Mars, distant from Earth.

The Martian system is composed of Mars itself and two moons that orbit it, though compared to the Earth-Moon system, its two companions are quite modest.

The diameter of Phobos, the first moon, is just over 20 kilometers, and Deimos, the second moon, is even smaller, with a diameter of only 15 kilometers, orbiting at altitudes of 1,300 kilometers and 8,300 kilometers, respectively.

The Moon’s diameter is nearly 3,500 kilometers, so in comparison, these two small bodies are at best large asteroids, and scientific research has also proven them to be asteroids captured by Martian gravity.

Their surfaces are not only pockmarked but also lack a regular and approximate circular shape, hence their low reflectivity. Viewed from the surface of Mars, they appear just as two dim stars, only 1/12 as visible as the Moon from Earth, roughly equivalent to seeing Venus from Earth.

What is not visible from the surface of Mars is that beside Deimos, a tiny point of light that sparkles with a faint blue glow and is much smaller than Phobos emerged.

That is the comet-"Departing Fire" combo, now in full deceleration mode, which, after a journey of 9 months, arrived at Mars at least half a month ahead of the anticipated time.

When "Departing Fire" was pushed away from Earth by the "Comet" thruster, only 5 months had passed since the last Mars opposition, and it had chosen the longest route to Mars.

A probe launched during a Mars opposition could reach its destination in a maximum of 6 months, and throughout the journey, only the engines for acceleration and deceleration needed to operate.

But the "Comet-Departing Fire" was different. Over the past 9 months, it utilized two nuclear reactors and the solar energy acquired, and the Hall Thrusters operated at maximum power the entire time, except for a brief shutdown during the turnaround for deceleration.

During the flight, it continuously worked for 193 days during the acceleration phase, and with the boost from Earth’s chemical engines, it reached a top speed of 92 kilometers per second, covering 330,000 kilometers in an hour.

Ground teams were always worried that its Hall Thrusters would malfunction after operating for so long, as space conditions are unpredictable, but luckily it had safely crossed the 1.1 billion kilometers of its elliptical path and was still working steadily.

However, its mission was nearing completion. When it was 6,900 kilometers above the Martian surface, "Comet" shut down its engine, then the explosive bolts were electrified, and at the same time, "Departing Fire’s" own thrusters ignited, separating the two parts that had been together for 9 months.

The ejected "Departing Fire" immediately began to continue decelerating, while the "Comet" turned in the opposite direction and started to accelerate again.

It was to use Mars’ gravity to accelerate once more, briefly skimming past Mars to head back in the direction of Earth, intending to return in roughly 5 months—if all went well, it could even make it back for Mars’ 2018 opposition and embark on a new journey with a fresh probe.

Meanwhile, after a brief orbit adjustment, "Departing Fire" shut down again until its orbital altitude dropped to around 300 kilometers; only then did it activate its onboard dimethylhydrazine fuel engine, rapidly decelerating, and within a few minutes, entered a low Mars orbit with a perigee of 218 kilometers and an apogee of 294 kilometers.

...

"Fuel reserves 45.4%, power supply normal!"

"Antenna array orientation normal, signal delay 581 seconds!"

"Orbital deviation 1.7%, orbit correction expected in 10 minutes!"

"..."

As Xie Liaofu watched the glaring red "PING:580264ms" on the screen, he did a quick conversion and couldn’t help but reflect:

"10 minutes, a full 10-minute delay, at a distance of 174 million kilometers, 1.16 astronomical units. In fact, ’Departing Fire’ has already completed two orbit corrections, but here it hasn’t even started."

Xiao Okada: "Yes, it’s far too distant from us. But the greatest advantage of nuclear power is the abundant electricity and large platform. The high-gain antennas we’re using are absolutely the largest among all deep-space probes. Even at such a great distance, we’re still able to maintain steady communication and send back clear images."

"The outside world only knows that it will arrive in October of 2018. During this year, we can confidently carry out an unobstructed observation of Mars."

Xie Liaofu pulled up the trajectory of ’Departing Fire’ on the computer, flawlessly passing over Mars’ southern pole, the ’Zero Plain’."

In 1832, German astronomers Wilhelm Beer and Johann Heinrich von Mädler discovered a terrain feature resembling the letter ’A’ on the surface of Mars, and then they used it to define the zero degree longitude line on Mars.

degrees east longitude, 69 degrees south latitude – these two sets of numbers are the highest secret of the base, even more critical than any technology."

Its existence accurately confirms one thing: the high likelihood of the existence of aliens in the universe and that the base can absolutely verify that."

Luckily, the location of Zero Plain in the Martian south pole is very inconspicuous compared to the popular international Mars exploration site of Utopia plain, almost in the opposite direction from north to south."

Now ’Departing Fire’ is to use its onboard detectors to carry out a detailed search for a full year."

Although ’Departing Fire’ is large and has sufficient space, it is extremely crowded because it carries almost every detection device that humans can think of."

In addition to detecting all common frequencies of electromagnetic and ray rays, it also carries a laser interferometer gravitational wave detection device."

In February last year, America’s LIGO Laser Interferometer Astronomical Observatory detected clear gravitational wave signals for the first time. These were produced by two black holes colliding at half the speed of light, each with a diameter of 150 kilometers, occurring around 1.3 billion years ago. After a lengthy journey, this event allowed humanity to conclusively prove the existence of gravitational waves for the first time."

Only such massive energy release could produce detectable gravitational waves, even the gravitational wave power produced when Earth revolves around the Sun is only about 200 watts. Scientists spent a full 100 years, continuously improving the sensitivity of gravitational wave detectors."

Of course, the device on ’Departing Fire’ is not one of those ultra-sensitive detectors composed of laser arrays several kilometers apart on the ground; it is merely a little gadget that is better than nothing. If it could detect something, Earth would definitely be able to receive it as well—only perhaps a bit earlier."

Xie Liaofu waited for ten minutes, and finally, the ground station received the image transfer signal from ’Departing Fire’, then it took about 9 minutes to fully receive the first picture."

It was a planet glowing red, but its surface leaned more towards orange-yellow. The photo taken by the detector’s large-diameter lens was very clear, fully displaying the rich details of the Martian surface."

It wasn’t Venus, with its surface filled with the magma-like flowing atmosphere, nor the Moon, isolated to the point of despair, but rather a revealing calm desolation, where one could easily make out what seemed to be the vast dry beds of rivers that had been dry for untold eons."

Xiao Okada admired the stunningly large image for quite some time before he recovered his senses and located the position of Zero Plain on it."

"The cycle is about 9 Earth days; in three more days, the detector will be directly over Zero Plain."

Xie Liaofu: "There’s still not enough time, we should send down a lander."

Xiao Okada: "By the end of June next year at the latest, robots will be standing on the surface of Mars."