I ask you to build tractors, but you build rockets?

The landing site of the Chang'e-4 mission is in the crater, whose scientific name is the Aitken Basin.

The reason why I chose this place is because scientists from various countries have analyzed this Antarctic region before and concluded that it is extremely rich in mineral resources and ice content. The available ice alone may weigh 270 billion tons, enough to manufacture countless ice. fuel.

If a fuel production base can be built here, it can even provide fuel and supplies for Mars spacecraft.

It is much easier to launch the same weight of fuel from the earth and from the lunar surface, even from lunar orbit to low-Earth orbit. One-sixth of the gravity can save too many resources.

The outside world only knows that Explorer 1 can jump and travel, but they know nothing about the specific data and what detection equipment it carries, let alone what Explorer 1 is doing.

From NACA's perspective, the unknown represents fear. From time to time, they take photos for analysis when their lunar orbiting satellite flies over the South Pole. Unfortunately, the two rovers are too small and cannot even see the lander, so they can only be said to be worthless. .

However, in the B-level base, Lin Ju and the engineers of the Explorer project team were controlling the giant spider to sample and analyze.

Since the distance between the earth and the moon is close to 400,000 kilometers, even light has to travel 1.3 seconds to reach it, which means that ground control is not real-time.

The signal transmission takes 2.6 seconds back and forth, and with the relay and forwarding, the time is even longer. This is also the reason why Yutu 2 is so dull, because if it is operated too hastily, accidents such as pitfalls are likely to occur.

However, this problem does not exist for the Explorer. It is equipped with a castrated version of the SC09 control system, which has only two chips and is a low-power version that limits many functions, but it is still enough.

There is no need for extremely complex image recognition and processing capabilities on the moon. Anyway, there will be no grocery carts that suddenly pass by without following traffic rules, and there will be no rocks blown up by strong winds. The only accidents are earthquakes and meteorites.

Therefore, many times the method of ground control is actually to assign tasks to explorers, for example: drill a hole at a depth of 3 meters at a certain location and perform spectral analysis on the collected samples.

Then there is no need to do anything on the ground. The explorer will analyze the route that is both safe and energy-saving, and jump to it one by one.

In this way, there is no need to worry about the risk of delay, since the AI ​​will avoid obstacles on its own.

The explorer's luck was actually not very good. When he first went there, he only encountered the tail of the moon and day. After moving for more than 900 meters, he had to go into hibernation and waited for 14 days before waking up again. This would be the time to work passionately.

However, the explorers' luck was not very good. Before departure, Xinyuan engineers read too many expert reports from various countries, which said that the south pole of the moon was covered with ice, and there would be ice lumps after just a few steps. However, the explorers' photoelectric The detector scanned countless times and found no sign of water resources, at least on the surface of the Aitken Basin.

In front of Lin Ju, the explorer completed its 19th drilling mission. It used the folded drill rod on the robotic arm to drill down to a distance of 3.4 meters, and then pulled it up for careful analysis with its own equipment:

Not a single ice crystal.

At this time, the explorer was already 1,300 meters away from the lander. While walking and looking around, he also found some resources.

In addition to large amounts of alumina, silicon oxide and silicates, the mineral deposits include ilmenite, which is abundant in the lunar soil. There are also many other copper ores and rare metals rhenium and antimony. Although the content is very low, If it is mined on a large scale, it will be much easier to obtain than on earth.

But smelting ore on the moon and transporting it to the earth... may still have to wait a long time before it works, and even if it works, it's not necessary.

Transporting so many dead things to low-Earth orbit, then wrapping them in protective layers and throwing them down would be as troublesome as opening a factory on the moon to engage in industry.

The top priority now is to find water. Without water resources, the lunar base will not be able to operate for a long time.

Fortunately, there is still a long time left for them, enough to throw Explorer 2, 3, and 4 up and search slowly, and they will always find it.

"Boss, it's normal that Explorer 1 can't be found. The Aitken Basin covers an area of ​​4.9 million square kilometers and has a diameter of 2,500 kilometers. If you really want to find it, you have to rely on luck or use a large professional prospecting vehicle, which is better than Explorer 1. Ten times larger, it is best to drill to a depth of 15 to 20 meters to have a greater chance of finding ice."

Chen Xuan, the chief engineer of the Explorer Project, explained to Lin Ju that although this would not affect Lin Ju's speed of making money, it was best to let the boss understand.

Lin Ju thought about it. More than half of the 400 kilogram small detector was a battery. It was really difficult to give it such an important task.

Chen Xuan continued: "The next mission of Explorer 1 is mainly to search for suitable lunar surface bases and landing sites while conducting exploration before the arrival of subsequent probes. Maybe we can launch another Explorer 2 separately by the end of the year. , wait until next year when Chang'e 5 and the nuclear power train are in place, and then conduct large-scale exploration operations."

Lin Ju: "Then the explorer will let it move freely?"

"Free activity" refers to the built-in function of Explorer 1, which assigns a centralized exploration mission in a certain area, and then the explorer determines the detection location based on the power and distance from the lander, and can freely conduct detection work.

If you encounter a moonlit night, rush back to the lander before then to charge the lander's battery. This way, you can also rely on the power stored by the lander's solar panels to maintain a small amount of activity on the moonlit night.

Unlike Yutu 2, if Yutu 2 remains in a moonlit night for a long time, most of its subsystems will go into sleep due to lack of power and will likely "pass out". Although the core components are kept warm by RTG (isotope batteries), if other original components It may also fail to start if the temperature is too low.

After passing out, you can only resign yourself to fate. Most of the time, if you are lucky, you can slowly charge and activate it through the solar battery. If you are not lucky, you will lose contact permanently.

The Explorer is much better. The "fainting" state will only occur if the battery is too low before going to sleep.

Chen Xuan was about to answer Lin Ju's question when the phone in the control room rang.

"Hello?...Ah, the Explorer is indeed there, um, okay, okay."

The call didn't last long. Lin Ju knew that this was the communication route connecting the Jade Rabbit No. 2 control center in Beijing, and asked curiously:

"What happened? Something happened to Yutu 2?"

Chen Xuan sighed first and then said quietly:

"The space agency said they found that the solar panels of Yutu 2 may be dirty, and the power generation efficiency has dropped by 3%. It may be that there was too much moon dust just now, and they asked us if we could take the time to help wipe it off."

Lin Ju's head was full of black lines. The space agency was using the explorers as space cleaners.

Don't ask why there is no wind on the moon, but the solar panels that are so high will be covered with lunar dust. The lunar dust on the surface of the moon is impacted by cosmic rays and high-energy radiation electrons from the sun. The dust has static electricity and is easily attracted to the spacecraft. superior.

As more and more lunar dust is absorbed, the mechanical structure will become stuck, the sealing mechanism will fail, the sensitivity of the optical system will decrease, the components will wear out, and the thermal control system will fail. The probability of occurrence will increase over time. Among them, the greatest impact is on solar energy. plate.

As long as it is covered with a thin layer of lunar dust, the power generation efficiency will be greatly reduced, which is why the space agency values ​​the explorer's robotic arm so much...

For the sake of coming from the same Earth, Chen Xuan planned a new scientific expedition route based on the power of Explorer 2. She planned to spend 72 hours on the expedition while traveling, and then give Yutu 2 a wipe before the moonlit night came. to charge.

Tired ~