LOG ENTRY: SOL 93
I found the Hab signal today. I have a solid bearing and direction to go. No more chance to get lost. According to the computer, I’m 24718 meters away.
I’ll be home tomorrow. Even if the rover has a catastrophic failure, I’ll be fine. I can walk to the Hab from here.
I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but I am really fucking sick of being in this rover. I’ve spent so much time seated or laying down, my back is all screwed up. Of all my crewmates, the one I miss most right now is Beck. He’d fix my aching back.
Though he’d probably give me a bunch of shit about it. “Why didn’t you do stretching exercises? Your body is important! Eat more fiber,” or whatever.
At this point I’d welcome a health lecture.
During training, we had to practice the dreaded “Missed Orbit” scenario. In the event of a second-stage failure during MAV ascent, we’d be in orbit, but too low to reach Hermes. We’d be skimming the upper atmosphere, so our orbit would rapidly decay. NASA would remotely operate Hermes and bring it in for rendezvous. Then we’d get the hell out of there before Hermes caught too much drag.
To drill this, they made us stay in the MAV simulator for 3 miserable days. Six people in an ascent vehicle originally designed for a 23 minute flight. It got a little cramped. And by “a little cramped” I mean “We wanted to kill each other”.
Once we got out, Commander Lewis declared “what happened in Missed Orbit stays in Missed Orbit.” It may seem trite, but it worked. We put it behind us and got back to normal.
I’d give anything for just five minutes of Missed Orbit training. I’m really feeling alone lately. Up till this road trip, I’ve been too busy to mope. But the long, dull days with nothing to do really drives it home. I’m further away from other humans than anyone has ever been.
Man, I hope I get Pathfinder working again.
LOG ENTRY: SOL 94
Home sweet home!
Today I write from my gigantic, cavernous Hab!
The first thing I did when I got in was wave my arms wildly while running in circles. Felt great! I was in that damn rover for 22 sols, and couldn’t even walk without suiting up.
I’ll need to endure twice that to get to Ares 4, but that’s a problem for later.
After a few celebratory laps around the Hab, it was time to get to work.
First, I fired up the Oxygenator and Atmospheric Regulator. Checking the air levels, everything looked good. There was still CO2, so the plants hadn’t suffocated without me exhaling for them.
Naturally I did an exhaustive check on my crops, and they’re all healthy.
I added my bags of shit to the manure pile. Lovely smell, I can tell you. But once I mixed some soil in, it died down to tolerable levels. I dumped my box o’ pee into the Water Reclaimer.
I’d been gone over three weeks, and had left the Hab very humid for the sake of the crops. That much water in the air can cause any amount of electrical problems, so I spent the next few hours doing full systems checks on everything.
Then I kind of lounged around for a while. I wanted to spend the rest of the day relaxing, but I had more to do.
Suiting up, I went out to the rover and dragged the solar cells off the roof. Over the next few hours, I put them back where they belonged, wiring them into the Hab’s power grid.
Getting the Lander off the roof was a hell of a lot easier than getting it up there. I detached a strut from the MAV platform and dragged it over to the rover. Leaning it against the hull and digging the other end in to the ground for stability, I had a ramp.
I should have brought that strut with me to the Pathfinder site. Live and learn.
There’s no way to get the Lander in the airlock. It’s just too big. I could probably dismantle it and bring it in a piece at a time, but there’s a pretty compelling reason not to.
With no magnetic field, Mars has no defense against harsh solar radiation. If I were exposed to it, I’d get so much cancer, the cancer would have cancer. So the Hab canvas shields from electromagnetic waves. This means the Hab itself it would block any transmissions if the Lander were inside.
Speaking of cancer, it was time to get rid of the RTG.
It pained me to climb back into the rover, but it had to be done. If the RTG ever broke open, it would kill me to death.
NASA decided 4km was the safe distance, and I wasn’t about to second-guess them. Driving back to where Commander Lewis had originally dumped it, I ditched it in the same hole and drove back to the Hab.
I’ll start work on the Lander tomorrow.
Now, to enjoy a good, long sleep in an actual cot. With the comforting knowledge that when I wake, my morning piss will go into a toilet.
LOG ENTRY: SOL 95
Today was all about repairs!
The Pathfinder mission ended because the Lander had an unknown critical failure. Once they lost contact with the Lander, they had no idea what became of Sojourner. It might be in better shape. Maybe it just needs power. Power it couldn’t get with the solar panels hopelessly caked with dust.
Setting it on my workbench, I pried open a panel to peek inside. The battery was a lithium thionyl chloride non-rechargeable. I figured that out from some subtle clues: the shape of the connection points, the thickness of the insulation, and the fact that it had “LiSOCl2 NON-RCHRG” written on it.
I cleaned the solar panels thoroughly, then aimed a small, flexible lamp directly at them. The battery’s long dead. But the panels might be ok, and Sojourner can operate directly off them. We’ll see if anything happens.
Then it was time to take a look at Sojourner’s daddy. I suited up and headed out.
On most landers, the weak point is the battery. It’s the most delicate component, and when it dies, there’s no way to recover.
Landers can’t just shut down and wait when they have low batteries. Their electronics won’t work unless they’re at a minimum temperature. So they have heaters to keep the electronics warm. It’s a problem that rarely comes up on Earth, but hey. Mars.
Over time, the solar panels get covered with dust. Then winter brings colder temperatures and less daylight. This all combines into a big “fuck you” from Mars to your lander. Eventually it’s using more power to keep warm than it’s getting from the meager daylight that makes it through the dust.
Once the battery runs down, the electronics get too cold to operate, and the whole system dies. The solar panels will recharge the battery somewhat, but there’s nothing to tell the system to reboot. Anything that could make that decision would be electronics, which would not be working. Eventually, the now unused battery will lose its ability to retain charge.
That’s the usual cause of death. And I sure hope it’s what killed Pathfinder.
I piled some leftover parts of the MDV into a makeshift table and ramp. Then I dragged the Lander up to my new outdoor workbench. Working in an EVA suit is annoying enough. Bending over the whole time would have been torture.
I got my toolkit and started poking around. Opening the outer panel wasn’t too hard and I identified the battery easily enough. JPL labels everything. It’s a 40 Amp-hour Ag-Zr battery with an optimal voltage of 1.5V. Wow. They really made those things run on nothin’ back then.
I detached the battery and headed back inside. I checked it with my electronics kit, and sure enough it’s dead, dead, dead. I could shuffle across a carpet and hold more charge.
So I knew what it needed. 1.5 volts.
Compared to the makeshift crap I’ve been gluing together since Sol 6, this was a breeze. I have voltage controllers in my kit! It only took me 15 minutes to put a controller on a reserve power line, then another hour to go outside and run the line to where the battery used to be.
Then there’s the issue of heat. It’s a good idea to keep electronics above -40C. The temperature today is a brisk -63C.
The battery was big and easy to identify, but I had no clue where the heaters were. Even if I knew, it’d be too risky to hook them directly to power. I could easily fry the whole system.
So instead, I went to good old “Spare Parts” Rover 1, and stole it’s environment heater. I’ve gutted that poor rover so much, it looks like I parked it in a bad part of town.
Bringing the heater to my “workbench,” I hooked it to Hab power. Then I rested it in the Lander where the battery used to be.
Now I wait. And hope.
LOG ENTRY: SOL 96
I was really hoping I’d wake up to a functional Lander, but no such luck. Its high-gain antenna is right where I last saw it. Why does that matter? Well, I’ll tell ya…
If the Lander comes back to life (and that’s a big if) it’ll try to establish contact with Earth. Problem is, nobody’s listening. It’s not like the Pathfinder team is hanging around JPL just in case their long dead probe is repaired by a wayward astronaut.
The Deep Space Network and SETI are my best bets for picking up the signal. If either of them caught a blip from Pathfinder, they’d tell JPL.
JPL would quickly figure out what was going on, especially when they triangulated the signal to my landing site.
They’d tell the Lander where Earth is, and it would angle the high-gain antenna appropriately. That there, the angling of the antenna, is how I’ll know if it linked up.
So far, no action.
There’s still hope. Any number of reasons could be delaying things. The rover heater is designed to heat air at 1 atmosphere. The thin Martian air severely hampers its ability to work. So the electronics might need more time to warm up.
Also, Earth is only visible during the day. I (hopefully) fixed the Lander yesterday evening. It’s morning now, so most of the intervening time has been night. No Earth.
Sojourner’s also showing no signs of life. It’s been in the nice, warm environment of the Hab all night, with plenty of light on its sparkling clean solar cells. Maybe it’s running an extended self-check, or staying still until it hears from the Lander or something.
I’ll just have to put it out of my mind for now.
PATHFINDER LOG: SOL 0
BOOT SEQUENCE INITIATED
TIME 00:00:00
LOSS OF POWER DETECTED, TIME/DATE UNRELIABLE
LOADING OS...
VXWARE OPERATING SYSTEM (C) WIND RIVER SYSTEMS
PERFORMING HARDWARE CHECK:
INT. TEMPERATURE: -34C
EXT. TEMPERATURE: NONFUNCTIONAL
BATTERY: FULL
HIGAIN: OK
LOGAIN: OK
WIND SENSOR: NONFUNCTIONAL
METEOROLOGY: NONFUNCTIONAL
ASI: NONFUNCTIONAL
IMAGER: OK
ROVER RAMP: NONFUNCTIONAL
SOLAR A: NONFUNCTIONAL
SOLAR B: NONFUNCTIONAL
SOLAR C: NONFUNCTIONAL
HARDWARE CHECK COMPLETE
BROADCASTING STATUS
LISTENING FOR TELEMETRY SIGNAL...
LISTENING FOR TELEMETRY SIGNAL...
LISTENING FOR TELEMETRY SIGNAL...
SIGNAL ACQUIRED
Chapter 11
“Something’s coming in… yes… yes! It’s Pathfinder!”
The room burst in to applause and cheers. Venkat slapped an unknown technician heartily on the back while Bruce pumped his fist in the air.
The ad-hoc control center was an accomplishment in itself. JPL had just 20 days to piece together antiquated computers, repair broken components, network everything, and install hastily made software to interact with the modern Deep Space Network. A team of engineers had worked around the clock, finishing only two days earlier.
The room itself was formerly a conference room; JPL had no space ready for the sudden need. Crammed with computers and equipment, little space was left over for the many spectators squeezing in.
One Associated Press camera team was permitted. The rest of the media would have to satisfy themselves with the live AP feed, and await a press conference.
Venkat turned to Bruce. “God damn, Bruce. You really pulled a rabbit out of your hat this time! Good work!”
“I’m just the director,” Bruce said modestly. “Thank the guys who got all this shit working.”
“Oh I will!” Venkat beamed. “But first I have to talk to my new best friend!”
Turning to the headsetted man at the communications console, Venkat asked “What’s you’re name, new best friend?”
“Tim,” he said, not taking his eyes off the screen.
“What now?” Venkat asked.
“We sent the return telemetry automatically. It’ll get there in just over 11 minutes. Once it does, Pathfinder will start high-gain transmissions. So it’ll be 22 minutes till we hear from it again.”
“Venkat’s got a doctorate in physics, Tim,” Bruce said, “You don’t need to explain transmission time to him.”
Tim shrugged. “You can never tell with managers.”
“What was in the transmission we got?” Venkat asked.
“Just the bare bones. A hardware self check. It’s got a lot of “nonfunctional” systems, cause they were on the panels Watney removed.”
“What about the camera?”
“It says the imager’s working. We’ll have it take a panorama as soon as we can.”
LOG ENTRY: SOL 97
It worked!
Holy fucking shit it worked!
I just checked the Lander. The high gain antenna is angled directly at Earth! Pathfinder has no way of knowing where it is, so it has no way of knowing where Earth is. The only way for it to find out is getting a signal.
They know I’m alive!
Happy dance, happy dance, I’m doin’ the happy dance!
All right. Enough happy dance. Time to make with the communicatin’!
“We received the high-gain response just over half an hour ago,” Venkat said to the assembled press. “We immediately directed Pathfinder to take a panoramic image. Hopefully, Watney has some kind of message for us. Questions?”
The sea of reporters raised their hands.
“Cathy, let’s start with you,” Venkat said, pointing her out.
“Thanks,” she said. “Have you had any contact with the Sojourner rover?”
“Unfortunately, no,” he replied. “The Lander hasn’t been able to connect to Sojourner, and we have no way to contact it directly.”
“What might be wrong with Sojourner?”
“I can’t even speculate,” Venkat said. “After spending that long on Mars, anything could be wrong with it.”
“Best guess?”
“Our best guess is he took it in to the Hab. The Lander’s signal wouldn’t be able to reach Sojourner through Hab canvas.” Pointing to another reporter, he said “You, there.”
“Marty West, NBC News,” Marty said. “How will you communicate with Watney once everything’s up and running?”
“That’ll be up to Watney,” said Venkat. “All we have to work with is the camera. He can write notes and hold them up. But how we talk back is trickier.”
“How so?” Marty asked.
“Because all we have is the camera platform. That’s the only moving part. There are plenty of ways to get information across with just the platform’s rotation, but no way to tell Watney about them. He’ll have to come up with something and tell us. We’ll follow his lead.”
Pointing to the next reporter, he said, “Go ahead.”
“Jill Holbrook, BBC. With a 32 minute round trip, and nothing but a single rotating platform to talk with, it’ll be a dreadfully slow conversation, won’t it?”
“Yes it will,” Venkat confirmed. “It’s early morning in Acidalia Planitia right now, and just past 3am here in Pasadena. We’ll be here all night, and that’s just for a start. No more questions for now, the panorama is due back in a few minutes. We’ll keep you posted.”
Quickly leaving the press room, Venkat hurried down the hall to the makeshift Pathfinder control center. He pressed through the throng to the communications console.
“Anything, Tim?”
“Totally,” he replied. “But we’re staring at this black screen because it’s way more interesting than pictures from Mars.”
“You’re a smart-ass, Tim,” Venkat said.
“Noted.”