Chapter 285 Ice

December 17, 19:00.

One thousand meters above the South Pole of the Moon, one of the three landers of the Chang'e 5 mission constantly adjusted the engine nozzle and quickly lowered its altitude.

Inside were two big spiders purchased by the space agency. Their landing site was the Kum crater, 430 kilometers away from the landing site of the Chang'e 4 mission, still in the Aitken Basin.

After obtaining the Explorer 2 basic platform provided by Xinyuan, the space agency added quite a lot of scientific research equipment. The functions of the two Yutu-3s are different and can assist each other in operations.

In order to distinguish them, they were named Yutu-3A and Yutu-3B. The space agency loves these two robots, which weigh nearly half a ton and have strong self-sustaining power, very much.

Xinyuan's two landers landed at the designated location four hours ago. For safety, they circled several times and used the "Laurel" resource exploration satellite to assist in positioning before entering the landing procedure.

As usual, the landing process was live broadcast. Although the space agency has done a lot for the lunar landing mission, the 5.8-ton lander is still a bit nervous. There are also many equipment on the lander!

The operator confirmed many times that the landing procedure was correct, and the landing posture of the lander was relatively stable. Everything seemed normal.

The altitude gradually dropped from 1,000 meters to 500 meters and 300 meters. The 20KN variable thrust hydrogen-oxygen engine carried by the lander began to gradually increase its power. The sharp-eyed staff could even see the moon dust blown up on the lunar surface.

Wait, something seems to be wrong.

Why do I seem to see a little dark reflection?

But before he could confirm it carefully, the lander had dropped to a distance of about 10 meters, and the strong tail flame blew away the moon dust on the lunar surface, revealing some unusual objects below.

The landing procedure of the lander still did not realize any problems. The sensor told it that everything was normal and the fuel was 15% rich, so the throttle was pushed to 50% for the last time, maintained for about 1 second, and then the lander could land safely.

Someone in the command center had already stood up, but the operators could do nothing. The signal delay for the engine to respond was at least five seconds, which was too late.

Ordinary people who watched the live broadcast on TV and the Internet did not understand what was wrong, but in front of the computer of an employee of ESA who was watching the broadcast, a participant in the asteroid probe project stood up.

"Water! Ice!"

In the Kum crater, the last meter of the lander's drop was maintained for more than one second under the 1-ton thrust of the engine, and the exposed ice layer directly below it was also ablated and melted by the high temperature, and the camera at the bottom of the lander was submerged by a ball of boiling water vapor.

The live broadcast screen also showed this change a few seconds later. Now everyone knew that there was an accident, but the boiling water vapor immediately turned into ice crystals due to the low temperature of the vacuum after escaping, and the 20KN variable thrust engine was also shut down.

The support leg of the lander hit the ice layer and slid a little distance. Because the pit burned by the tail flame just now was a little tilted, but it did not affect the use. The landing procedure was considered good, and a standby signal was sent to the relay "Queqiao" satellite, which forwarded it to the earth.

But what they didn't know was that the Chang'e 5 ground control center had swept away the serious atmosphere and became agitated.

...

"What? Ice layer? The Chinese found ice layer!"

Claire hung up the phone and turned on her phone. The hot news on Twitter had become "Yutu-3A has found ice in the moon".

Time went back to three hours ago.

The person present at the Chang'e 5 ground command center at that time was Shen Zuozhou, who had just returned to the ground after completing space training a few days ago. He had two guesses in his mind at that time:

Either the lander was lucky enough to land on a piece of land covered by only a thin layer of lunar soil, which was the exposed part of the legendary lunar South Pole ice layer; or a fragment of an ice meteorite fell on the moon and happened to touch it.

If it was the former, then this place could be used as a construction site for the lunar base.

So he immediately gave the order to release the two robots, Yutu-3A and Yutu-3B, to conduct random drilling in the surrounding 1 km range. The fixed-point sampling equipment of the lander can drill down 5 meters and start working now.

The fixed-point analysis of the lander will take some time, and the results will not be available until the live broadcast ends, but it is no longer important.

Because when Yutu-3B jumped out of the lander and moved in the opposite direction of Yutu-3A, the eight legs that fell passed through the lunar soil less than 10 cm thick. Because of the low friction of the ice layer, it slid abnormally, and the AI ​​​​moving frantically warned. Fortunately, the posture was stabilized by eight flexible spider legs and continued to move forward.

A total distance of 100 meters, almost every step can touch the ice layer. Finally, Yutu-3B stopped at a high ground, and the two front feet dug down hard. This time, a shallow pit of nearly 30 cm was dug, and there was still turbid ice underneath.

Half an hour after the lander landed, the original two devices did not do the procedures of shooting each other and raising flags, and they were digging holes everywhere frantically under the command of Shen Zuozhou.

The two Yutu-3s advanced more than 100 meters each, and found ice less than 40 cm below the lunar surface in 5 of the 6 random locations.

The lander's drilling also reached its limit, with the entire 5-meter depth covered by ice.

Shen Zuozhou immediately estimated in his mind that even if the circular area of ​​more than 100 meters that had been explored had a 5-meter ice layer, it would be almost 200,000 tons of ice!

200,000 tons of ice can be electrolyzed to produce 20,000 tons of hydrogen and 180,000 tons of oxygen!

The lunar surface base is here!

At this time, most people watching the live broadcast still felt strange. The two jade rabbits jumped far away before the scheduled program was completed, and the command center felt a bit messy until the live broadcast ended.

However, there were quite a few industry insiders who watched the live broadcast. An employee of the European Space Agency first released the news that the Kum crater might be caused by the impact of an ice meteorite, or because a small part of the lunar ice layer was exposed by the impact of a meteorite.

In either case, the diameter of the Kum crater is about 4.3 kilometers, and it is expected that there will be at least 8.7 million tons of ice, which is enough to meet the fuel and living needs of a large lunar base.

This article, which is mostly speculative, combined with the anomalies in the live broadcast of the space agency, immediately caused a huge sensation in the spacecraft. Although there have been various indirect evidences in recent years that there is a large ice layer on the lunar surface, there has never been a conclusive discovery.

However, the Chang'e 5 mission actually discovered such a large ice layer. Doesn't this mean that the lunar base will soon become a reality?

Ice can directly produce oxygen and hydrogen. There are so many inorganic substances in the lunar soil. It is not impossible to produce methane and ammonia. It can fully support a base!

While the outside world began to ferment, the Aerospace Development Commission finally released the news three hours later:

"The Chang'e 5 No. 1 lander suspected to have discovered ice crystals in the Kum crater in the Aitken Basin in the South Pole of the Moon. Chinese scientists are organizing more analysis activities."