Son of the Stars

Chapter 196 Give it a try

In most engineering fields, resistance is not a good thing. It will prevent the machine from running, consume the energy of the system, and increase energy consumption. Countless smart people racked their brains and spent countless days and nights trying to find ways to minimize its negative effects.

But now, resistance has become the only hope to save Zheng Yan.

The AI ​​system has admitted that it cannot calculate the aerodynamic balance parameters of the landing capsule when its dynamic shape is damaged. Since it cannot sense and determine the damage to the landing capsule, the entire landing capsule system is an indescribable entity full of mysteries and errors for the AI. It can certainly use other sensors to infer and calculate the current aerodynamic characteristics of the landing capsule - but this takes time.

It takes enough time and computing resources to train a model and then produce a model that can be published. In the atmosphere of Mars, in a lander that is expected to crash after a few minutes if it fails to slow down... there are no such conditions.

The only thing she can rely on now is her own brain and the various sensory organs in her body. The data displayed on the HUD is too messy and complicated, and has no reference value for her. It is not as useful as the vestibular system in her ears.

With both hands pressed in front of her, Zheng Yan twisted the joystick in the opposite direction. The most advanced equipment in the field of human engineering faithfully performed its mission. The six jets turned together and then sprayed high-pressure gas. The chaotic spiral rotation was greatly suppressed, but the landing module was still not stable enough.

From Brownian motion to forward roll, it is not difficult to correct it.

The difficulty is that the rapidly increasing density of the Martian atmosphere is increasingly affecting the lander. Before the forward roll is completely corrected, the dense Martian atmosphere will once again plunge the lander into a chaotic rotation like Brownian motion.

Zheng Yan tried manual control three times in total, and the time it took to fall back into a chaotic rotation from a forward roll was significantly reduced. Five seconds, three seconds, one second. Zheng Yan, who had almost gotten used to the dizziness, took a deep breath. The numbers on the altimeter were decreasing rapidly, and the details on the ground were becoming more and more abundant. She had few opportunities to continue trying, and the situation had not improved at all.

Using attitude control engines alone is not enough to reverse the situation, and some special means must be used.

It is useless to release the parachute in this posture, and the rapidly rotating lander will entangle the parachute and control ropes tightly on the outside. This will only make the already complex aerodynamic appearance of the lander even more unpredictable.

The recoil rocket can be manually activated, but its function is only to provide a torque in a fixed direction - the direction and duration of the injection cannot be controlled, and it is completely unhelpful in controlling the flight attitude.

The ground became clearer and clearer, and the number on the altimeter officially dropped below 5,000. The chaotic situation did not improve at all, and life or death would be decided in a few tens of seconds.

Zheng Yan took a deep breath and suddenly pulled the handle beside her. The inflatable cushion at the bottom of the landing capsule, which was used to increase the cushion during landing, expanded rapidly, forming a huge mushroom-shaped cushion under the landing capsule.

The landing capsule, which was still spinning rapidly, suddenly felt a huge resistance, which had a much greater impact on the entire landing capsule than the crushed outer wall. About ten seconds later, the landing capsule got rid of the uncontrollable spiral state and maintained an upside-down posture.

It's stabilized! Zheng Yan's tense nerves echoed with a burst of excited cheers, followed by more intense preparations.

After the landing capsule crashes headfirst into the surface of Mars, the chance of survival for the astronauts inside is still zero. If you want to change this situation, you still have to find a way to complete a normal landing.

The attitude engine can only provide a certain amount of rotational torque for the lander. Considering that its thrust strength cannot even reverse the previous disordered rotation of the lander, the attitude engine certainly cannot directly overcome the power of the landing inflatable cushion that currently provides stable resistance.

What's worse is that although the landing pad has a strong connection, it is designed to deal with impacts from below. Structurally, the landing pad is not suitable for acting as a high-resistance stabilizer. The huge force from the wrong direction will continue to destroy the connection between it and the landing module. The sound of the seams being torn apart by the Martian atmosphere has penetrated the landing module and reached Zheng Yan's ears. We must find a way to deal with it immediately - otherwise there will be no chance.

Seeing the ground getting closer, Zheng Yan took a deep breath and began her final struggle.

The left joystick was pushed forward to the left to three-fifths of the way, and the right joystick was pulled back to the same position but in the opposite direction. This operation controlled the attitude engine, causing the entire landing module to rotate along the damaged part on the outside.

If the lander is simply regarded as an acorn that was much sought after by squirrels in the Ice Age, then the current lander is a large acorn with a smooth pointed head facing downward, a wide base at the back, and a piece missing near the base. When it is intact on the outside, the entire lander has only two main axes of rotation - the rotation axis that runs through the center of the acorn, and the second main axis that starts from the center of the acorn mass and is perpendicular to the central rotation axis. In this rotation axis system, the rotational inertia of the acorn center rotation axis is the smallest, and the rotational inertia of the second main axis is the largest.

But when a piece of the starting surface is missing, the originally smooth and symmetrical acorn changes mass, and a new main axis of rotation is born at the geometric center of the defect - the main axis of the ray radiating from the tip of the acorn to the geometric center of the defect. Since almost the entire acorn needs to rotate around it, this newly added main axis of rotation becomes the rotation system with the largest moment of inertia. At this time, the rotation axis running through the geometric center of the acorn has the smallest moment of inertia, while the second rotation axis perpendicular to the geometric center has the second largest moment of inertia.

Zheng Yan's final struggle was a measure taken based on the phenomenon of Dzhanibekov rotation. A rigid body is stable when it rotates around the principal axis with the largest moment of inertia or the principal axis with the smallest moment of inertia, but it is unstable when it rotates around the intermediate axis. When rotating around the intermediate axis, the rigid body will undergo periodic angular momentum reversal.

This flipping process allows the lander to change direction.

But spinning alone is not enough - when the lander spins like a top, it spins along the axis with the smallest moment of inertia. In this state, the lander is very stable and will not turn around and complete the life-saving flip. If she wants to survive, she has to make some changes to the axis of inertia again. Only when the axis with the smallest moment of inertia becomes the intermediate axis can the Dzhanibekov rotation happen where she needs it.
-
The entire process of lowering the rover from the forward base is automatic - as long as the astronauts slide directly into the cockpit through the passage inside the forward base. Whether the airtight door is disconnected or the vehicle automatically drives out of the forward base garage, the astronauts do not need to be directly exposed to the surface of Mars.

Despite its advanced equipment, the rover's driving speed is not very fast. The gravity on Mars is about 38% of that on Earth. To ensure safety, the eight-wheeled all-wheel drive rover can only travel at a maximum speed of kilometers per hour.

In fact, on the rugged surface of Mars, it is difficult for the rover to exceed 30 kilometers per hour.

Such a slow speed is very unfavorable for the implementation of the Mars rescue mission.

In the base, the optical camera has captured the lifeboat rotating in the atmosphere. The computer in the forward base has accurately calculated more than 600 landing sites, and then divided these landing sites according to the probability of hitting. There is no way, the rules of the lifeboat rotating in the sky are too changeable, this is the limit of what the computer can do.

The 600 landing sites cover an area of ​​up to 120 square kilometers, which is approximately equivalent to one-sixth of Dongyang Special City, or one-third of the urban area of ​​Dongyang Special City.

In order to reach the landing site of the life capsule as quickly as possible, the Mars rover, under the command of AI, will head straight to the area with the highest landing probability. At the same time, the optical lenses on the Mars rover and the forward base will continue to observe the life capsule and correct the landing point at any time.

The rescue mission was carried out by Masao Watanabe, Valentina and Kim Woo-cheol.

In the swaying Mars rover, Watanabe Masao and Kim Woo-cheol were putting on their space suits. AI navigation estimated that it would take them about half an hour to reach the "higher probability landing area", and putting on the space suits would take more than ten minutes.

There is absolutely no oxygen outside, and the air pressure is less than one percent of that on Earth. One more second of exposure to this environment could be fatal. Rather than waiting to get close to the scene and then put on a space suit... everyone is more willing to prepare first and use every second to save people.

However, no matter how active the preparations are in reality, the astronauts will not have too much expectation. Dawn 7 was blown into many pieces, and Ruan Hongying died on the spot... Although it is still uncertain what the cause of the explosion was, there are only a few possibilities - catastrophic failure, meteorite impact, quantum energy release syndrome and terrorist attack. These reasons can basically kill the entire Dawn 7 in an instant, and the premise for there to be living people in the lifeboat is at least that the living people can enter the lifeboat.

"I don't think we can find the commander... but we still have to go and check it out. In case there is a record of an explosion in the lifeboat, it will at least be a reminder for No. 6's safety." Watanabe Masao said as he put on his space suit.

The astronauts would not take any chances, as it was hard for them to believe that Zheng Yan could survive under such circumstances. However, they were still actively preparing for the rescue mission.

"Oh my god, what if?" Jin Yuzhe muttered, "Sister Zheng is..."

Perhaps they are not so determined, or perhaps humans are inherently more fragile than they think.

This fragility hidden deep in the human heart was suddenly and completely exposed to the air after Watanabe Masao and Kim Woo-chul completed the airtightness of their space suits.

Under the gaze of the rover's photoelectric probe, an unprecedented light burst out around the upside-down lifeboat.

Then, the lifeboat on the screen, which was less than two kilometers above the ground, suddenly began to disintegrate. The various components inside the cabin were scattered in all directions like water droplets on a spinning umbrella.

(End of this chapter)