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

Sergei jumped down from the two-meter-high gangway, stumbled and nearly fell when he landed, and then he actually tried to do a handstand.

Although he looked a bit clumsy in the heavy spacesuit, he actually managed to maintain his balance after just one try.

He stood upside down for about thirty seconds before finally losing his balance, curling up and rolling in the red dust, before getting up again, looking disheveled but excited.

All eyes were on him. He knew he hadn't actually done anything truly dangerous. His spacesuit helmet was made of high-strength transparent silicon carbide, which couldn't even be broken by a hammer, let alone this level of impact.

"You brat," Han Jing's voice came through the radio, "if you twist your ankle, we're not taking you on the rest of the sightseeing trip, understand?"

He could tell that Sergei wasn't really angry, so Sergei decisively chose to ignore him.

The other teammates had resumed their tedious scientific research work: some were collecting soil samples, some were hammering rocks with pneumatic hammers, and others were digging small trenches—it was all incredibly boring.

"Mars, I love you!" Sergei shouted.

He rushed to the top of the nearest sand dune in one breath, and then slid down the slope all the way to the bottom on his buttocks.

Mars is absolutely amazing.

……

At this moment, Han Jing could not contain his excitement. He wanted to run freely, to leap as if walking on flat ground, to hop like a rabbit. Adrenaline surged wildly in his veins, and only one voice echoed in his heart: I'm here, I'm really here.

The surrounding Martian scenery has an eerie, surreal feel.

Because of the planet's curvature, the horizon appears incredibly close, distant mountains seem tiny, and the sky looks like a layer of dirty paint that hasn't been applied evenly.

The illusion made him feel as if he could run to the end of the world in just a few minutes.

He crouched down and tried to grab a handful of sand. To his surprise, the sand was unusually hard, with a hard crust on the surface. When he scraped away the crust with a tool, the soil underneath was as fine as the finest rouge.

They naturally clump together, and no matter how much he kneads them with his fingertips, they won't fall apart.

……

When Commander Sheng Tianhong returned to the landing module, he was still enveloped by a sense of loss that he couldn't quite pinpoint.

Song Xingye and Sasha were waiting in the cabin. Due to his professional habits over the years, the first thing he did after entering the cabin was to walk to the porthole and observe the condition of the team members outside.

Han Jing and Mira were working together seamlessly to analyze a rock. Mira was responsible for chipping away at the weathered layer, while Han Jing attached a portable X-ray crystal diffractometer to the newly exposed rock surface to scan the microcrystalline structure.

Seeing the two working together seamlessly, Sheng Tianhong secretly breathed a sigh of relief; he had been worried that the two wouldn't get along.

In retrospect, the friction during the flight was most likely just psychological stress from the confinement of the space. Now that we have this vast open space, everyone's mood has obviously improved a lot.

Sheng Tianhong noticed that they had already taken the secondary ion mass spectrometer out of the equipment box, but were still doing final adjustments.

He switched the communication channel to a public band, where it was quiet; clearly, the two were chatting on a private channel.

As the commander, he had the absolute authority to forcibly eavesdrop, but years of experience leading teams told him that unless an emergency occurred, it was best to give his team members some private space.

Sergei was out of sight at the moment, probably hiding behind some sand dune to have some fun. Sheng Tianhong paid special attention to this young man, who sometimes acted like a child who never grew up.

But whenever he sheds his disguise, reveals his true self, and abandons his pretentious and gloomy demeanor, his enthusiastic vitality is extremely infectious, becoming an invisible lubricant for the entire team.

Initially, Sheng Tianhong strongly opposed bringing such an inexperienced newcomer on board, but now it seems that the boy is adapting well, and his presence has indeed added a lot of life to this long journey.

Although the veteran team members were unwilling to admit it on the surface, and even they themselves were unaware of it, they all liked this kid deep down and sincerely hoped that he could be safe and sound.

As long as he doesn't cause any big trouble because of his impatience, impulsiveness, ignorance, recklessness, or clumsiness—to put it bluntly, as long as he can act like an adult instead of a rebellious teenager—everything will be fine.

To be honest, Sheng Tianhong felt he had no right to blame a young man for being "like a child." Back when he was young, he was much more irritable. He was able to temper his temper and live to this day entirely thanks to the passage of time and the blessings of God.

"Yes," Sheng Tianhong thought with a wry smile, "Sergei can be quite annoying at times, but overall he's not bad, at least much easier to manage than I was back then."

Only after all the team members outside had completed their missions and returned did Sheng Tianhong and his team make their second round of exiting the cabin.

At that moment, communications officer Song Xingye was intently focused on the control panel screen. Sheng Tianhong walked over and gently patted him on the shoulder: "How's the progress? Want to go to the porthole and look at the scenery outside?"

Song Xingye didn't even look up: "I'm currently conducting a comprehensive check of the 'Darwin's' system data."

"Checking again?" Sheng Tianhong raised an eyebrow. "We've checked its system twelve times over the entire patrol. As far as I know, it shouldn't have run into any trouble in the past four hours."

"That's true, but now that we've landed, the communication bandwidth has made a qualitative leap," Song Xingye explained. "I can now directly and remotely take over its underlying sensors, and the data I can obtain is much more detailed than the conventional health self-check signals."

Song Xingye frowned and shook his head: "But this set of readings is simply outrageous. Captain, come and take a look at this."

He pointed to a set of fluctuating data on the screen, "This is the temperature of the fuel tanks. Theoretically, the temperature of these two fuel tanks should be stable at around -180 degrees Celsius, but the system is showing that they have both soared to above -70 degrees Celsius. Although the pressure readings are all normal and the fuel tanks show as fully loaded, this temperature data is really baffling."

Sheng Tianhong bent down to examine the display screen: "I think it's probably a faulty thermistor."

It's too much of a coincidence that the sensors on both fuel tanks malfunctioned at the same time.

"This is tricky," Sheng Tianhong said thoughtfully. "According to the original mission plan, we should have waited until tomorrow morning to inspect the 'Darwin' on-site. How about this, why don't you put on your spacesuit and go out for some fresh air and clear your head? If we absolutely have to go ahead and inspect it today, the decision is yours, but it would be best to go out and clear your head first, okay? Everyone has traveled a long way and is a bit mentally exhausted."

The commander patted him reassuringly on the shoulder. "In short, what I mean is, you should take a break and go see the real Mars. You deserve it."

"Understood, Captain," Song Xingye relaxed his tense expression and stood up. "I'll go prepare to exit the cabin right away."

……

In Song Xingye's eyes, the Xihe was like a mushroom that suddenly sprouted from the ground, with a half-withered cap on top.

Landing on Mars is certainly a great achievement, but when the astronauts finally have to abandon the cramped and smelly Xihe spacecraft forever on a foreign planet, they must feel a sense of reluctance and regret.

Admittedly, this machine is ugly, smelly, and cramped, but it has fulfilled its mission perfectly and is a reliable and meritorious vehicle.

However, what truly matters is always returning safely.

The Darwin is their means of transportation back to Earth. If anything goes wrong, the sooner the cause is identified, the faster they can begin to address it.

The strange readings on the Darwin remained etched in Song Xingye's mind.

Although he was on the surface of Mars and the magnificent scenery before him filled him with joy, and he thoroughly enjoyed the freedom of wandering on the alien surface, after being cooped up in the spaceship for seven months, he was finally free again, but deep down, the hidden dangers of the Darwin were still a worry in his heart.

Abnormal readings always make people uneasy, as they often indicate a malfunction in the equipment.

Some readings, such as temperature, may not be obviously abnormal, but there's always something off about them.

He could only hope that the commander was right and that it was simply a sensor malfunction.

God knows how common this is. These sensors are like troublemakers in space, always choosing the middle of the night or the most dangerous times to act up, waking people from their sleep, only to often turn out to be false alarms.

But in any case, it always makes people feel more at ease to personally investigate the cause.

According to the schedule, they have to check the return capsule again the day after they arrive on Mars.

After all, the team members needed a day to rest and recover their strength after a long landing and ground preparation work.

The commander was unwilling to disrupt the established plan, and Song Xingye respected the arrangement.

But if it were up to him, he would want to head straight for the Darwin right now.

He couldn't help but look at the return spaceship, which was parked just a kilometer away, exuding a silent allure.

The Darwin's appearance was completely different from the rocket behemoth that Song Xingye had imagined, pointing straight to the sky and shaped like a bullet.

In fact, it looks like a potato covered in nodules, with the oval-shaped thrusters at the bottom of the first stage spewing out a wisp of white mist.

During different stages of research and development testing, Darwin was jokingly referred to by engineers at the launch site as "fat pig," "flying dung," and "flying cow."

The spacecraft was short and bulky, sacrificing streamlined design entirely in pursuit of payload efficiency. Since Mars' atmosphere is extremely thin, almost equivalent to a vacuum, it didn't require a good aerodynamic shape, so it looked as clumsy as a fire hydrant.

A launch technician once misspoke to a reporter, calling it "the magical flying dung." To save face, the nickname was hastily changed to "the magical flying toad."

Although this nickname has been used privately ever since, it has always maintained the official title of "Mars Return Launch Capsule" in front of management or the media.

Song Xingye was very concerned about the Darwin. If anything happened to "her", he would want to find out right now.

……

The Xihe lander successfully landed on the edge of the Felice-Dolsa region of Mars. The Latin name means "cat's back," but perhaps "cat's spine" would be a more accurate translation, as Martian geologists refer to flat plains divided by low, narrow ridges as ridges.

The location was carefully chosen; the sandy terrain between the ridges is flat and smooth, ensuring a safe landing. At the same time, the rover can easily traverse this area to reach Valles Marineris, which is the primary target for exploration chosen by geologists.

Those low, rounded ridges stretching for hundreds of kilometers have become an excellent subject of study for geologists, who are still debating the geophysical origins of these landforms.

In the tropical region south of the Martian equator, Felice Dorsa has a relatively mild climate, at least by Martian standards, considering that nighttime temperatures there often drop below -100 degrees Celsius.

Flying to Mars is a piece of cake; the real challenge lies in how to return safely.

To return to Earth, a fully fueled interstellar spaceship must be launched from the surface of Mars.

However, transporting a fully fueled spaceship to Mars is incredibly difficult, whereas landing a "car out of gas" is much simpler.

This Mars exploration program was actually launched nearly a decade ago. The first spacecraft was unmanned and carried only a fully automated fuel production system and a liquid hydrogen payload.

Although liquid hydrogen is enormous, after one Martian year of operation, this system can synthesize rocket fuel equivalent to twenty times the weight of liquid hydrogen from the thin Martian atmosphere.

As a backup plan, a second return spacecraft with its own fuel manufacturing plant is following closely behind on a slower trajectory.

If the current mission goes wrong, it will activate the backup procedure. If everything goes smoothly as planned, the second spacecraft, named "Darwin", will be transferred to another landing site for use in subsequent exploration missions.

……

Previous Mars exploration missions rarely sent back perfect sunset images, since at many landing sites the sun's trajectory is very different from Earth's.

It would be unwise to remind Mira of this. The unmanned probes had indeed taken many videos of sunsets, which she had naturally seen, but the real sunset she saw with her own eyes was amazingly different.

The colors are more delicate, and the sky has a bright golden-bronze hue, unlike the faded and pale pink seen in the video.

As she gazed at the sunset, the shadows on the horizon almost blurred into a pale blue, and a halo of light hovered above the yellow sun.

The sun here was much smaller than the sunsets she remembered on Earth, and the rolling ridges of Felice Dorsa took on an almost brownish-red hue in the deep twilight.

The team members sat side by side, silently admiring the afterglow of the setting sun.

A chill crept in. During the day, Han Jing's spacesuit cooler operated at full capacity almost all day because the waste heat generated by his body far exceeded the heat that the insulation layer could conduct and dissipate.

At this moment, as night falls on Mars, even at the landing site near the equator, the temperature has plummeted to minus forty degrees Celsius.

The microcontroller that monitors the internal environment of the spacesuit begins to operate in reverse, sending current to the heating element that is in close contact with the inner lining membrane.