Die on Mars

From the perspective of people on earth, Kunlun Station is undoubtedly a desert shack with a simple structure. The entire Kunlun Station is composed of two parts.

The first is the main station, which is where the scientific expedition team members live and perform tasks. The core of the main station is a low round turtle shell with an aluminum alloy truss structure. The shell is made of high-strength engineering plastics and is deeply rooted. In the soil on the surface of Mars, it is about fifteen meters in diameter and looks like a flattened white yurt.

The core cabin is Tang Yue's main activity place. It is the hall, kitchen, warehouse, gym, conference room, laboratory, and main control room of Kunlun Station - it has most of the functions of Kunlun Station.

Seven small cabins are connected in a radial pattern outside the core cabin, six of which are member cabins, and the remaining one is an airlock.

The area of ​​the member cabin is pitifully small, and it is not a rigid structure. In the words of team leader Lao Wang, he would worry about the wall breaking through if he farts... These six cabins are all inflated and adopt a modular design. They can be replaced, they were crushed and packed in boxes when they were originally shipped.

The second part of the Kunlun Station is the garage. The structure of the garage is simpler than that of the main station...it is just a container, and the Mars rover is usually parked in the container.

Tang Yue first checked the charging status of the battery.

The battery is fully charged. This electricity mainly provides energy for the life support system at night. The solar panels are useless after the sun goes down, so Tang Yue must put them into the garage.

"Are you going to collect the battery panels?" the old cat asked.

Tang Yue took off the extravehicular suit hanging on the wall, "Yes, it will get dark soon, so we have to put away the battery panels."

"Be safe." The old cat nodded.

Tang Yue unzipped the back of the extravehicular spacesuit, then bent down and got in. The extravehicular spacesuit is a very heavy thing, weighing 60 kilograms, but fortunately the gravity of Mars is only 1% of the Earth's. Forty, that is to say, wearing something weighing 60 kilograms on the body is only equivalent to 24 kilograms on earth.

Old Mao came over to help Tang Yue zip up, and then fastened the huge life support system.

The life support system is a thing shaped like a trolley box. This box integrates all the functions that can keep Tang Yue alive. As long as he leaves Kunlun Station, Tang Yue has to carry this turtle shell wherever he goes.

The green indicator light on the inside of the mask is on, which means that the life support system is connected and the spacesuit is in normal condition.

"The Mingguang Armor is in normal condition and its air tightness is intact." Tang Yue talked to Lao Mao through the earphones and gave a thumbs up.

The old cat patted Tang Yue's mask and gave a thumbs up on his paw.

Mingguang Armor is the nickname of the scientific expedition team for the extravehicular activity suit, because this suit is really too bulky and bulky. It has a semi-rigid structure. The entire upper body of the extravehicular suit is a hard shell, and the helmet It is fixed to the shoulder, and the joints of the limbs are connected by alloy bearings and steel rings, so it looks like ancient armor.

Wearing Mingguang Armor and going out of the cabin feels like going out to fight Martians.

Tang Yue didn't like this set of clothes. He couldn't even bend down while wearing the Mingguang Armor.

"Good Luck!" Old Mao's voice came from the headphones. Tang Yue raised his head and saw Old Mao standing in the hall waving.

Tang Yue nodded, turned around and struggled to open the airlock door.

Once he put on the extravehicular suit, Tang Yue seemed to be isolated from the world. On the one hand, it was because the sound insulation effect of the helmet was so good. Tang Yue put his head into the mask, and the surrounding noise immediately disappeared. On the other hand, because the extravehicular suit was too thick, Tang Yue felt that he was not wearing a suit of clothes, but getting into a house.

The airlock is a horizontal cylindrical cabin, one end is connected to the core cabin, and the other end is the exit of Kunlun Station.

The airlock is six meters long and nearly three meters in diameter. There is a safe-like hatch at each end. Tang Yue bent down and got into the airlock, turned around and closed the hatch behind him, making sure that the hatch was locked, "VAL LOCKED" The green light comes on.

Through the glass observation window on the hatch, he could clearly see the old cat inside.

Tang Yue walked through the airlock step by step. The air pump was started above his head, and the Mingguang Armor entered full-pressure mode. Then he opened the exit of Kunlun Station. The airlock was connected to the outside Martian atmosphere the moment it opened the door. The red warning light came on and the air pressure dropped rapidly.

The atmospheric pressure of Mars is less than one percent of Earth's. If he were directly exposed without wearing an extravehicular suit, Tang Yue would not survive for more than a minute.

"How is the situation?" asked the old cat.

"I'm out of the cabin and feeling fine."

Tang Yue took a deep breath. The majestic and magnificent desert of Mars spread out in front of him. The sun had already set in the west and the sky was getting dark.

Not far away is the Mars Rover's garage, and a little further away is the tall Eagle spacecraft. The white lander stands on the sand, and its smooth and soft curves are incompatible with the rough and wild desert around it, making it particularly conspicuous.

The open space in front of Kunlun Station is a solar panel array.

The intensity of sunlight on Mars is less than half that of Earth, which means that more and larger solar panels must be used on Mars to meet the needs of the Kunlun Station.

The main power source of Kunlun Station is the solar panel array. This array has more than 40 panels with a total power of nine kilowatts. When fully deployed, it takes up half an area as large as a standard 400-meter playground.

Every morning Tang Yue had to manually unfold them piece by piece, and at night, before the sun went down, Tang Yue had to put them all back indoors.

Once the sun sets, the surface temperature of Mars will drop to minus 80 degrees Celsius, sometimes even as low as minus 100 degrees Celsius. Such low temperatures will greatly reduce the life of the battery panels.

There are no spare solar panels, and if one is broken, one will be missing, so Tang Yue must take good care of them.

Tang Yue held a brush in his hand and began to clean the sand and dust on the battery panels. After cleaning, he moved them back to the garage.

Due to the thin atmosphere, the wind on Mars is usually not as strong as on Earth, but it will still raise sand and dust. These fine dust fall on the surface of the battery board and may invade the gaps of the circuit board and block the heat dissipation vents, causing Short circuit or open circuit, so Tang Yue had to clean it every day.

"Tang Yue." Old Mao's voice came from the earphones.

"Huh? I'm listening."

Tang Yue knelt on the ground. Since the extravehicular suit was semi-rigid and the upper body could not bend, bending was a problem. All the tools in the Kunlun Station had long handles, so astronauts could avoid bending as much as possible.

Tang Yue pushed up the light filter mask, held a long-handled brush, and carefully cleaned the battery board.

"How many supplies are you going to send to Miss Maidong?" the old cat asked, "so I can make a plan."

Tang Yue stopped what he was doing and thought for a while.

"Give me half."