Reborn in 2011, I am the chief designer of aerospace.

"Please believe me, don't stop."

Sheng Tianhong and Mira quickly exchanged a glance.

"Nine thousand meters," Sheng Tianhong warned, his eyes glued to the screen. "The radar still hasn't locked on."

Mira knew perfectly well that they had long since forgotten about mission safety rules.

Sheng Tianhong took a deep breath: "Mira,"

Just then, the warning lights suddenly went out, a clear alarm sounded, and the radar successfully locked onto the ground.

Song Xingye gasped sharply, his tense nerves instantly relaxing.

"God help us!" Mira exclaimed excitedly, slamming her fist on the control panel. "Let's keep going!"

"That's right, let's go all the way." Sheng Tianhong's tense facial muscles finally relaxed a little.

Mira turned to look at Song Xingye behind her, a smile playing on her lips: "Looks like we just successfully flew over that pumice beach, right?"

Song Xingye gazed at her. "I think so."

She suddenly realized that she might have been talking nonsense when she mentioned "pumice" before.

Although Song Xingye never easily believed such things, it was not entirely impossible.

As for whether Sheng Tianhong would actually order the mission to be aborted, or allow her to land without radar, she had no idea.

She realized that she didn't know the passenger as well as she had thought.

"Eight thousand meters," Sheng Tianhong blurted out, "the descent rate is one hundred meters per second, we prepare to land."

The engine roared loudly.

Mira gripped the joystick tightly.

Her right hand gripped the attitude control lever, a device with a bright red pistol grip, while her left hand rested on the thrust translation controller, which sprayed reaction propellant downwards to slow her descent.

The entire system is connected to the thrust reverser control subsystem (RCS) via electronic devices, which will be responsible for most of the spacecraft's steering operations.

She manually ignited the reverse thruster, and the solenoid valve emitted a reassuring click.

She handed control back to the computer.

"Manual attitude control responds well."

She felt her confidence return.

With radar lock-on and thrusters working in sync, she was confident that everything would go smoothly as the final landing approached.

"Seven thousand meters," Sheng Tianhong said. "Let's continue and pass through the approach checkpoint."

Under computer control, the Challenger tilted slightly forward, and Mira's body tilted forward as well.

She gazed ahead, and as the spaceship passed the nearby horizon, a steep ridge appeared, marking the edge of the crater-strewn terrain.

Beyond this ridge, the landscape transforms dramatically: smooth, devoid of craters, resembling a parched, muddy floodplain…

Below the nose of the aircraft is a valley that winds its way north from the southern plateau, resembling a deep ravine carved in a woodblock print. Not far to the northeast is a wide volcanic crater.

This is exactly the same map model they saw in the control center.

Mira shouted excitedly, "I found it! I see Mangala! It's as big as a roast goose!"

She gripped the Challenger's control stick tightly, preparing for landing.

The Mars Lander Module (MEM) stands steadily on the rocket, drifting across the Earth's surface like an intercontinental ballistic missile.

"Three thousand meters, speed seventy meters per second, full power," Sheng Tianhong said. "Continue landing, full speed ahead, maintain attitude. Two thousand meters, wind speed ten meters per second."

Wind speed.

This was a training session I had never experienced in a simulator, but the low speed of 10 meters per second was completely irrelevant.

"Give me the LPD landing point indicator reading..." she said to Sheng Tianhong.

"Forty-three."

She looked through the porthole along the 43-degree mark on the landing point indicator.

In the computer-programmed route, a tunnel connects her to the landing point.

This time, there are no distracting options.

Although it still retains its old-fashioned interface, the performance of this hardware and software is far superior to the old-fashioned aircraft she pilots in her training plane.

She could now clearly see the computer's landing point; the target was approaching a kilometer away, aligning with the crosshairs of the scope...

Damn.

Guided by the main navigation system (PGNS), Challenger is flying as planned toward a marker a few kilometers north of the Great Barrier Reef and north of the Outflow Valley.

But when she looked closer, she found that the land was uneven and full of ravines.

At the very center of all this is a low impact crater with a sunken bottom, and behind it lies an island.

"Lava Scars," she said, "Song Xingye, you'll love it. Looks like you guessed right, it's practically a dried-up riverbed over there..."

But she absolutely cannot land the landing capsule in that godforsaken place.

The solenoid valve clicked, and the Challenger began to shake.

The computer is constantly correcting the flight trajectory based on the data transmitted back from the radar.

Mira was surprised to find that the attitude thrusters fired far more times than during the simulation training.

Sheng Tianhong continued to broadcast altitude and speed data: "700 meters, descent rate 31 meters per second; 600 meters, 29 meters per second; 540 meters, 25 meters per second."

Mira, it's time to make a decision.

She flipped the switch, bypassing PGNS and gaining control.

She pushed down the translation controller and simultaneously toggled the fine-tuning thruster switch to slow the descent of the landing module.

The Challenger's systems responded instantly to the touch command, and the solenoid valves emitted a crisp click.

Suddenly, she took complete control of the spaceship.

The reaction was swift and precise. The thrusters roared, the landing capsule tilted forward, and she felt herself being pressed tightly against the seatbelt.

The Challenger glided over the surface of Mars, steered by her own hand.

She noticed that Sheng Tianhong was staring at her.

"Low-altitude approach," Sheng Tianhong said, "500 meters altitude, 35-degree elevation angle, descent rate of 21 meters per second."

The landing capsule was still falling, but it was gliding forward, skimming over the terrain below, which had been shattered by floodwaters.

She had to head north, away from this broken land, away from these ancient landscapes.

Head north, that's where we should go.

Go to the smooth lava plain left after the flood receded.

Test pilots have a motto: if in doubt, land far away.

Mira continued to fly forward, searching for a sufficiently spacious alternate landing area.

"Four hundred meters, descent rate nine meters per second. Three hundred and fifty meters, four meters per second. Three hundred and thirty... Mira, watch the fuel level."

Be careful with fuel.

That's right, the mission planners specifically sent her across interplanetary space to carry out humanity's first alien landing, but only gave her a mere two minutes of hovering fuel.

But isn't this what you wanted, Mira? Isn't this what we've been dreaming of all these years? To pilot a spaceship and land on the surface of another planet, like Armstrong.

She felt her heart racing.

There was a seemingly reasonable spot ahead, but as she approached, she discovered it was covered with boulders.

This might be a great gift for Song Xingye, but it was a fatal disaster for the landing capsule.

Further on, the terrain was relatively flat, but in Mira's eyes it was still full of gravel, with dried-up streams and ravines everywhere.

She could picture the landing legs sinking into a crater and the entire spacecraft tilting to one side.

She shifted the lever to the left, avoiding the boulder area.

She thought to herself, there isn't even a decent airport runway on this planet.

Sweat dripped from her forehead and seeped into her eyes, forcing her to blink constantly.

As the spaceship drew closer, new terrain emerged from the distance, with the details of the surface clearly visible.

However, she still couldn't find a place to stay.

Three hundred meters, descent rate of 3.5, forward speed of 54.

How is the fuel condition?

"Seven percent."

That's fucking ridiculous.

She performed even worse than in the simulator, except for those few simulated tests where she crashed directly.

To the right is a flat area, which looks like a small hill, but is actually a dusty wasteland.

One side is piled with ancient rocks, and the other side is a weathered ravine.

This flat area is only a few hundred square meters, about the size of a parking lot, but that should be enough.

She locked onto the landing site.

She gently pushed the control stick, and the landing capsule immediately yawed to the right.

She aligned the markings with the target and imagined the computer interface in her mind.

She imagined those curves, Song Xingye's polynomial, winding and extending, leading her to the landing point.

220 meters, forward 13, down 4... forward 11, descent is smooth, altitude and speed indicator lights illuminate.

The Challenger spacecraft is passing over the surface of Mars and approaching her.

It was a cone-shaped object; she could even see the antenna standing upright at the top, the landing platform at the bottom, and the contact probe extending downwards.

She was now very close to the shadow.

Immediately afterwards, red, brown, and yellow dust rose from the ground like giant waves, suspended in the thin atmosphere.

Dust and shadows mingled. These scenes had never appeared in the simulator.

Now this is real, Mira.

A warning light suddenly lit up ahead, displaying the message "Fuel Down".

With fuel running out, she would be in a "death zone," lacking the power to abort the landing and escape, or to land safely.

The spaceship would simply plummet to the ground like a fragile aluminum eggshell, shattering into pieces.

She forced herself to ignore the warning lights; the safety redundancy design of these systems was too conservative, and it would be fine to just leave the spacecraft to the pilots.

PGNS completely removed its intervention in the landing procedure, and Challenger entered the final descent phase.

She stared at a small ditch outside the landing site as a reference point to determine the spacecraft's altitude and trajectory.

While trying to control her horizontal speed, her gaze remained fixed on the ravine.

Due to the design limitations of the landing module, the spacecraft must land perfectly vertically without any lateral displacement; otherwise, the landing legs would break off on the spot.

Dust swirled and rose around the spaceship, obscuring her vision and casting large ochre-red stripes on the portholes.

Thirty seconds.

Did it drift forward?

You can do it, 100 meters, descent rate 3.5%.

The thick fog-like dust completely engulfed her.

At this moment, all she could see was sand and dust flying everywhere.

The thick fog-like dust completely engulfed her.

At this moment, all she could see was sand and dust flying everywhere.

Those blurry trajectories made it difficult for her to judge the relative motion of the spaceship, just like the thick fog drifting across the runway obscuring her vision.

But through the mist, she caught a glimpse of a rock standing out abruptly, and immediately fixed her gaze on it.

Sixty meters, two backwards, two forwards... two forwards, very good.

She lightly pressed the descent thrust switch, and the speed decreased sharply until Challenger drifted towards Mars like a feather.

Fifty meters, thirty, then another two and a half... We kicked up a huge cloud of dust.

I can see it, damn it... the landing capsule is drifting backward, but Mira can't figure out why.

Drifting backwards was extremely dangerous because she couldn't see the terrain behind her at all, so she immediately pressed the manual control switch.

"twenty."

She finally managed to stop the backward movement, but the spaceship began to skid again.

Damn it! She was so angry she wanted to jump up and down; this damn machine wouldn't listen to her at all.

Four steps forward, three steps forward, slightly to the left, and you'll see a faint shadow.

The shadows gradually enlarged and merged, and the dust churned violently; she could no longer see the ground at all.

She gritted her teeth and struggled to adjust the landing capsule to a vertical attitude.

She is blindly descending and continues to fall.

Forward four, forward three, forward 0.5, drift left.

Mira felt a gentle jolt.

Mira stared intently at Sheng Tianhong, and the two locked eyes for a full second.

Then, she quickly pressed the button and shut down the downstage engine.

The vibrations characteristic of engine ignition dissipate when power is cut off.

She should have cut off power the moment the contact light came on. If the engine had continued to ignite at such a low altitude, the powerful back pressure from the jets would have been enough to destroy the engine itself...

After its final five meters of freefall, Challenger crashed heavily onto the Martian surface with a dull thud.

Mira felt the impact of landing squarely on her knees, and all the unsecured equipment inside the cabin made a loud clattering sound.

"Damn it!" she said.

Sheng Tianhong immediately began rapidly broadcasting the post-touch checklist.

"The engine has stopped, and the automatic clutch has disengaged."

"The joystick has disengaged from the neutral position."

"Mode control: Automatic. Engine overdrive during descent: Off. Engine standby deactivated..."

They successfully passed through the T+1 checkpoint, a crucial moment when they first had to make a "stay or evacuate" decision.

With the airlock doors confirmed to be locked, it seems they can stay here a little longer.

Looking out of Mira's porthole, the horizon was flat and almost within reach.

She saw sand dunes, dust, and scattered pebbles covering the ground.

There was a deathly silence all around, with no sign of any movement.

Without buildings, pedestrians, or trees, the brain can hardly develop a sense of scale and distance.

The sky took on an unusual yellowish-brown hue, and the sun appeared small and low-hanging, emitting a dim yellow light.

The light streaming into the cabin through the porthole was a mixture of pink and brown hues, and she could clearly see how it shone on her spacesuit helmet and her cheeks.

The light from Mars shone on her face.

She saw Sheng Tianhong's bright smile through his helmet.

"Kingju, Challenger has successfully landed on Mars."

Mira could hear the confident joy in his voice.

Mira, Sheng Tianhong, and Song Xingye, who were far away in orbit, congratulated each other via radio. The two patted each other on the back inside the cabin and excitedly bumped fists through their helmets.

Mira glanced at the flight data; there were only 14 seconds of landing fuel remaining.

Who cares, 14 seconds is more than enough.

When Armstrong landed on the moon, he only had about 20 seconds of fuel left, and no one would care about the difference of a few seconds.

In any case, it will be a very, very long time before someone comes back here and does a better job than I did today.