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 the 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 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 Earth, there are no large satellites like the Moon.
However, affected by factors such as temperature differences, the activity of the Martian atmosphere is not low.
Many times, the atmosphere on Mars will undergo violent global movements, kicking up large amounts of dust, 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 debris, 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 dust storms 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 climbing team, I'm Jiang Xinlin."
"I have successfully arrived at the 'Mengzhou Life Support Unit', and the residential module has been deployed and completed. Everything is going smoothly so far, and no problems or equipment failures have been found."
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 the 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: "The Hanhai will drop the first batch of supplies in two hours. The drop coordinates have been sent, please pay attention to check."
"receive!"
While Jiang Xinlin was handling and deploying 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 on wheels is also towed.
It was 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 solve all the energy needs in the early stage.
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 carry out activities and scientific research experiments at the same time.
However, they did not pin all their hopes on the smooth landing of the Hanhai space shuttle on Mars.
If the former is not so smooth, they still have a backup plan.
That is, the most popular renewable energy such as "solar energy" and "wind energy".
Although Mars is farther away from the sun than the earth, it is not so easy to collect and use solar energy.
But overall it is not an impossible thing.
At least some photovoltaic solar panels are laid near the equator, and some solar energy can still be collected during the day.
Not much, but enough for a small number of early scientific expedition teams to use.
As for wind energy, although the atmosphere on Mars is thin and turbid, the activity of the atmosphere on Mars is not low.
Especially in the summer months of June, July, August and September, Mars is close to the sun, and the atmosphere is most active when it is exposed to the sun.
It is also possible to convert wind energy into electrical energy through specific equipment.
But compared with the more convenient and simple solar energy, wind energy is still a lot more troublesome.
It took the Mars rover more than two hours to drive less than eight kilometers.
Compared with driving on Earth, the speed of the Mars rover can be described as a turtle crawling, and even an adult man jogging is faster than this speed.
But compared with other Mars rovers and alien probes, this speed is not slow, and it can even be said to be walking briskly.
For example, the Zhurong Mars rover that landed on Mars in 21 years has a speed of 40 meters per hour.
This speed is slower than the speed of a turtle, and the average speed of a turtle is about 60 meters per hour.
There is also the Perseverance Mars rover launched by the United States, whose fastest driving speed is only 120 meters per hour.
This is still the test result of Perseverance on a flat road.
Compared with these "predecessors", the Yinghuo series of Mars rovers that landed on Mars with the Yinghuo Mars landing capsule were much faster.
Especially behind this Mars rover, there was a big guy weighing more than one ton.
After parking the Yinghuo II Mars rover steadily at the destination coordinates, Tang Hongbo, wearing a Mars spacesuit, jumped off the car.
Then, he quickly took down the detection equipment, drilling equipment, storage bags and other things fixed on the Mars rover.
Finding a flat place, Tang Hongbo deployed these equipment at different points.
Then, he pressed the communication button on the spacesuit.
"Calling Hanhai, this is the Yinghuo II Mars landing 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 will start exploration and sampling operations."
After briefly reporting the work, Tang Hongbo took a flat plate from the Mars rover and then operated the electromagnetic pulse radar equipment.
The electromagnetic pulse radar he used has another name, called "ice radar". It is a ground-penetrating radar that uses electromagnetic pulses for covert detection and can effectively explore the accurate situation underground.
Soon, the detection operation of the electromagnetic pulse radar began.
The principle of this detection equipment is mainly based on the emission, reflection and reception process of electromagnetic waves.
Simply put, the radar can generate a short-term high-power pulse signal through the transmitter, which is transmitted through the antenna in the form of radio waves.
When the pulse signal encounters the target object, it will be reflected back to form an echo signal, which returns along the same path as the transmitted signal and is received by the radar's receiving antenna.
Just like bats, they use ultrasound to determine whether there are obstacles on their flight route, etc.
However, compared with bats that can only make simple judgments, the electromagnetic pulse radar optimized and designed by scientific researchers has more functions.
For example, it can more widely measure the distance, diameter, and even properties of single or multiple objects.
Just like by measuring the characteristics of the received signal, the situation of underground mineral resources can be inferred.
After skillfully operating 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.
Soon, the preliminary detection data of the electromagnetic pulse radar was transmitted back.
"Calling 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, uploaded to the central computer, and is being processed."
"Received."
After a brief communication, Tang Hongbo first shut down the operation of the electromagnetic pulse radar.
Then, he walked to the small mobile drilling equipment.
After skillfully operating this equipment that was less than half a meter high, four structures similar to the support legs of the crane slowly extended next to the device of the drilling equipment roller.
This is the 'anchor point' that fixes the drilling equipment to the ground.
Soon, the four 'anchor points' drilled into the soil and rock layer of Mars. After the mechanical equipment automatically confirmed that there was no problem, the drilling equipment began to work.
Unlike conventional drilling equipment on Earth, after the mobile drilling equipment fixed itself, it slowly extended a spiral drilling arm to the oblique side.
Immediately afterwards, the rotating drill bit began to work, and the Martian soil and dust on the surface in contact with it were carried everywhere.
With the flying dust, pieces of samples were dug out from the ground.
Although this small set of drilling equipment is not as big as an adult man, in fact, its value is more expensive than the same weight of 100-yuan bills.
If I remember correctly, the total weight of this mobile drilling equipment on Earth was about 1.2 tons.
However, on Mars, according to the gravity of Mars, which is only about one-third of that of the Earth, it is only 400 kilograms.
One ton of 100-yuan bills is about 86,956,500 yuan, which is about 87 million yuan. 400 kilograms of 100-yuan bills are worth about 30 million yuan.
The R&D and production costs of this mobile drilling equipment far exceeded this figure, reaching an astonishing 80 million RMB.
Although it is so expensive, the money is spent on the blade.
This small mobile drilling equipment can go 5 meters deep underground for core sampling in the case of fully automatic drilling sampling.
If the drilling tube is added with manual assistance, the deepest drilling sampling can exceed 20 meters!
Although 20 meters of drilling depth is nothing on Earth, this is Mars!
It is no exaggeration to say that it is a new historical record to be able to drill out the core from 20 meters deep underground on Mars.
If there is any flaw, it is that its operating speed is really a bit slow.
The Hanhai space shuttle has analyzed the detection data of the electromagnetic pulse radar, and the depth of its drilling here has only reached about five meters.
Judging from the previous exploration data, this depth is obviously not enough to reach the underground ice storage.