The first year of the Milky Way, December 19th, Blue Star time.
At one o'clock in the morning, Fang Tianbo and Masashi Kishimoto, who were woken up by the alarm clock, started their day's work.
This time, in addition to 510 tons of mass used to transport artificial satellites, they were left with a carrying capacity of 1,490 tons, of which 1,030 tons were parts for 21 standard cabins.
The remaining 460 tons of mass include 50 tons of living materials, a 4-ton Mars landing spacecraft, a 26-ton Mars ground standard cabin, a batch of 41-ton detectors, and the remaining 295 tons are all various
equipment and repair parts.
The second task of the first team of the Space Expeditionary Force is to build a Mars synchronous orbit space station. This modular space station construction technology is already very mature.
Fang Tianbo and Masashi Kishimoto are both familiar with operating space work robots and splicing together parts of standard cabins. No. 9527 is also helping to build the space station.
They are very fast and can build a standard cabin in an average of one hour. By about 1:12 in the evening, the Mars synchronous orbiting space station consisting of 9 standard cabins has begun to take shape.
At 19:24, Fang Tianbo held a brief meeting.
Fang Tianbo looked around the crowd and said: "Now that part of the Mars synchronous orbit space station has been initially completed, our work will be distributed again starting tomorrow. Yuri and Commissioner Lin will continue to take turns to be on duty in the Sun Chaser cockpit to develop and monitor the orbit around Mars and the Blue Star.
Communications work.”
"No problem." Yuri replied.
Linley also nodded in agreement.
"Official history, you and the 952 robot continue to build the Mars synchronous orbit space station." Fang Tianbo continued to give instructions.
"Hi!" Masashi Kishimoto nodded and replied.
"I will start specific exploration work on Phobos and Deimos starting tomorrow."
Exploring Mars is their third mission. Exploring Mars involves not only the exploration of Mars itself, but also its two natural satellites.
December 20th.
The Phobos exploration work chaired by Fang Tianbo has officially begun, and two geological satellites have already orbited the big potato Phobos.
There are two "photography" instruments (called sensors) on the geological satellite. One is a reflective beam tube TV camera, which is similar to a TV camera; the other is a multispectral scanner that can separate the electromagnetic waves reflected from the ground by wavelength.
record it.
The two geological satellites deployed on Phobos will acquire electromagnetic wave information in various bands radiated or reflected by ground objects, and then send this information to the Sun Chaser spacecraft.
Since each object has different reflections in different spectral frequency bands, after the spacecraft receives the satellite signal, the supercomputer of the Sun Chaser spacecraft will process and interpret the information based on the spectral characteristics of various materials.
Obtain detailed information such as the characteristics, distribution and status of various resources.
Phobos is an irregular satellite with a very small size. Phobos is only about 26.6 kilometers x 22.2 kilometers x 1.6 kilometers in size. It is shaped a bit like a potato. The average distance from the center of Mars is 937 kilometers.
It is about 6,000 kilometers from the left and right sides of the Martian surface.
In addition, there is a huge meteorite impact crater on Phobos, which is like a big potato being bitten. This meteorite impact crater is called Stickney impact crater.
Fang Tianbo looked at the data fed back by the geological satellite's spectrometer and said to himself:
"The Phobos feedback spectrum contains moderately strong absorption at ultraviolet wavelengths below 0.4-0.5 microns, while there are no obvious features but a slight reddening at longer wavelengths. And around 3 microns there is
A feature called water absorption, which indicates the presence of water on Phobos. It is an obvious C-type asteroid."
The so-called c-type asteroids. Generally, the spectrum of this type of asteroid is very similar to that of carbonaceous chondrites (ci and cm types). In addition to not containing hydrogen, helium and volatiles, their chemical composition is similar to that of the sun and primitive
Much like the Solar Nebula, it also has hydrated (water-bearing) minerals.
Fang Tianbo observed the spectral feedback from Stickney Crater and said to himself in surprise: "Hey! There is a metal reaction in the center of the crater. It seems that the meteorite that hit Phobos is an S-type (stone-iron composition)
Asteroids or M-type (iron-nickel composition) asteroids, but the specific situation still requires landing exploration."
After completing the remote sensing detection work of the geological satellite, he launched a small sampling spacecraft to Phobos. The spacecraft used an ion engine to easily land on the surface of Phobos. Because Phobos is too small, its gravity is almost negligible.
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The sampling spacecraft selected 6 locations on Phobos and took 10 samples from each location. These drilled samples were quickly sent to a laboratory cabin on the Mars synchronous orbiting space station. This cabin was isolated from the space station.
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The isolation of the sampling and laboratory chambers from the space station or spacecraft is also a strict requirement of safety regulations. After all, no one knows that these asteroids do not contain deadly viruses or bacteria that humans are difficult to immunize against, so all materials collected from alien planets must be
Carry out isolation treatment.
Human workers or scientists in science fiction movies have direct and close contact with alien materials of unknown origin. This behavior is strictly prohibited in the Human Innovation Alliance. After all, this kind of behavior may bring unpredictable risks.
Soon the laboratory began to conduct comprehensive and detailed laboratory analysis of these samples.
"All samples generally contain crystal water, and the content is quite high. The highest content is 31.6%, the lowest is 4.3%, and the average water content is about 1.71%."
"The central area of Stickney Crater contains 14% to 16% silica, 34% to 35% calcium carbonate, about 3% crystal water, 27% to 2% iron oxide, and about 3%
Nickel, and the remaining 10% are other inorganic salt impurities. It seems that the asteroid that hit Phobos to form the Stickney crater was an S-type stone-iron asteroid."
"No biological reaction has been detected. This is good news." Fang Tianbo said to himself while looking through the laboratory report.
In the next week, Fang Haibo successively completed the preliminary detection work of Phobos and Deimos, launched a landing spacecraft to the equatorial region of Mars, and established a Mars forward base.
Masashi Kishimoto and 9527 also completed the construction of the Mars synchronous orbit space station.
The first year of the Milky Way, December 2nd, Blue Star time.
"Yuri sent a message to Blue Star that the Sun Chaser spacecraft will depart back to Blue Star at 10:20 this morning." Fang Haibo ordered.
"Received." Yuri quickly operated the communication system to send a message to Blue Star. It took about 17 minutes for the reply communication from Blue Star to come through.
"Captain, the New Chang'an Space Station has agreed to our return to Blue Star."
"Okay, everyone gets on board and enters the load-bearing cabin."
The four people entered the life-sustaining and load-bearing cabin. When the time was up, the Sun Chaser spacecraft left the Mars synchronous orbiting space station and headed for a distant starry sky.
At this time, the distance between Mars and Blue Star has become larger again, reaching about 143 million kilometers, which is more than 10 million kilometers farther than before.
However, for a sub-light speed ship, it only takes more than two hundred seconds. After the Sun Chaser, which is equipped with a condensed matter shield, passes through the acceleration stage, its speed increases to a cruising speed of 13.% of the speed of light.
Around 416 seconds, the Sun Chaser spacecraft entered the deceleration stage, which also marked that it was about to enter the Blue Star region.