Pang Xuelin was wearing an eva space suit and stood on the top of a small hill.

It is noon now, and the Martian sky is a hazy yellow-brown color. There is a lot of hematite on the surface of Mars and the color is red. This light is reflected into the atmosphere. In addition, there are many dust particles in the Martian atmosphere, so the Martian sky looks a bit close to the color of sandstorms on Earth.

However, in the morning or evening, the Martian atmosphere will turn red or pink. This is because the Martian atmosphere is more likely to accept infrared light with longer wavelengths, and there are reflections from the particles in the atmosphere and the Martian surface, so it will appear in this color.

The rover was parked at the foot of the mountain and charged with electricity. Pang Xuelin climbed up the hill and enjoyed the beautiful scenery of the red planet.

Looking into the distance, you can see small hills with various beautiful streamlined shapes located in the desert. Most of these hills are gentle and beautiful in shape. This is the result of the eternal wind and sand effect of billions of years.

After entering the world of "Marls Rescue", Pang Xuelin had the first time to enjoy this desolate and lonely alien world.

These days, Pang Xuelin set out every day, wash and eat, check the air composition in the car, check the oxygen tank and replace the carbon dioxide filter, and then drive for about three hours, find a place to park, do an eva, take out the solar panels in the car, and charge the rover with the solar panels on the roof.

After charging for about four hours, he went to Eva again, put away the battery panel, and drove until dark, finding a place to park and rest.

Life on long-distance travel is boring and regular.

After staying at the top of the hill for nearly half an hour, Pang Xuelin returned to the narrow rover with some boredom.

The interior of the roaming car is not very large, and food and equipment occupy a lot of space, barely leaving Pang Xuelin a small bed for lying on others.

The heat provided by rtg is very strong, which can keep the rover basically at a constant temperature of 25 to 30 degrees.

Taking off the bulky eva space suit, Pang Xuelin could sleep inside in a T-shirt, big shorts, and wrapping a blanket.

This kind of life is not comfortable for truck drivers on Earth. The most troublesome thing is how to deal with excrement.

There are toilets in the roaming car, but this kind of toilet only has a sewage tank for emergency use and is not connected to the water circulation system in the car.

So Pang Xuelin could only deal with the problem of urination and defecation separately. The large size is relatively simple and can be solved in the toilet. He specially prepared a bottle. After the solution, the urine was poured into the water circulation system, and then...

Forget it, let’s not talk about it anymore, the author feels disgusting.

After leaving the cabin for three days, Pang Xuelin missed the life of the cabin a little.

In three days, Pang Xuelin traveled through the Asidalia Plain and entered the hilly area, but there was at least one to two days left to the destination. According to the map, after Pang Xuelin traveled through the hilly hills, he had to cross the Chris Plain and enter the Ares Valley.

It was a delta area that hit the riverbed and also the landing area of ​​Mars Pathfinder.

But finding the location of Mars Pathfinder is not an easy task.

The navigation beacon in the habitat cabin is only forty kilometers. Although there is a relatively complete topographic map on the computer, if you want to rely on landmark navigation, Pang Xuelin found that he took it for granted.

Because of the landmarks that appeared on the picture, he couldn't find them at all.

The compass is even more meaningless, because there is no magnetic field on Mars at all.

However, Pang Xuelin had his own way. Phopos (Phobos), who rose to the west and fell twice a day, was his best partner.

Although it is impossible to use Fepers for accurate navigation, the approximate orientation can be measured.

This is also the reason why he was able to successfully enter the Chris Plain.

But after entering the Chris Plain, Pang Xuelin found that trouble was coming.

Looking into the distance, there is a dim and flat land everywhere, with no reference at all.

It was like staying there if you drove out for more than ten kilometers and twenty kilometers.

Pang Xuelin, referring to Fepers, drove on the Chris Plain for a day with some anxiety, but the expected Ares Valley never appeared.

Pang Xuelin even doubted whether he was heading in the wrong direction. It was not until the morning of the fifth day that Pang Xuelin felt that his time was running.

Because he found an excellent reference to Hammer's impact crater.

This impact crater named after the town in the fairy tale of the flute player has a diameter of ten kilometers, coordinates of 20.2 degrees north latitude and 32.8 degrees west longitude.

So Pang Xuelin knew that he was not far from Mars Pathfinder.

On the afternoon of the fifth day, Pang Xuelin drove a rover and finally crossed the Chris Plain and entered the Ares Valley.

The roads began to become rugged, and some stones of different sizes appeared on the road from time to time. Fortunately, the chassis of the rover was high enough and the off-road performance was quite good.

That night, Pang Xuelin parked the rover near a huge rock as his camp and slept very steadily.

Early in the morning of the sixth day, Pang Xuelin was full of energy and began to slowly search in the Ares Valley.

After a day of search, Pang Xuelin finally found the landmark Twin Peaks he was looking for.

Twin Peaks are a very famous photo taken by Mars Pathfinder, which consists of two very close hills. The landing point of Mars Pathfinder is exactly one kilometer west of Twin Peaks.

Pang Xuelin drove all the way, and finally found the Mars Pathfinder, which was tightly wrapped in airbags and half buried in sand, not far from the west side of the double peaks.

"Finally found you!"

Pang Xuelin couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.

Before leaving, he and Watney had an agreement to search in Ares Valley for at most one week. If they really can't find the Mars Pathfinder, they must return immediately.

Now, it only took him two days to find the target, which is extremely smooth.

Mars Pathfinder is a tetrahedron wrapped in airbags. When flying to Mars for a certain distance, the Mars Pathfinder spacecraft began to cruise and prepare to release the parachute. At a height of 5 to 11 kilometers above Mars, a huge parachute carrying an airbag opened and then floated down rapidly. At a height of 300 meters, the flying bag automatically inflated and expanded... Finally, it leaves the parachute and bounces to land on Mars. After landing, the airbag will deflate, exposing the Mars Pathfinder inside.

The Mars Pathfinder consists of a landing compartment and a Fortune rover. The landing compartment is not mobile. The Fortune rover can roam at a turtle speed of 2 feet per minute to detect the rock components on Mars. It is the first Mars rover in human history and has played an extremely important role in human exploration of Mars.

Pang Xuelin found the Envoy Mars rover, which had been shut down for nearly 40 years, thirty meters away from the landing cabin.

However, the most important communication equipment is still in the login cabin. The login cabin is too large and Pang Xuelin can't move it at all. He only needs to move the communication system and the Envoy Mars rover away.

Why should I bring the Mars rover with the Inhabitants? The reason is very simple. If people on Earth want to contact Mars Pathfinders, they can only send fixed instructions, such as allowing the Mars rover to move back and forth, left and right. This fixed instructions have no meaning to Pang Xuelin.

He needed to convert this command into understandable text, so a rover with a rotatable camera became the best choice.

At that time, he can only create the corresponding alphabet and use the rotatable camera of the rover to have a conversation with the Ares Project Command.

Everything went well.

Pang Xuelin tied the rover with the landing cabin with the hinge, then drove the rover and pulled the landing cabin out from under the sand.

Then, he used various tools he carried in the car to separate the main system of the landing compartment from the heaviest soft landing system.

Finally, he threw the 10-kilogram Mars rover into the roaming car. The landing cabin main system weighing nearly 100 kilograms was placed on the roaming car's fog.
Chapter completed!