Margaritifer Basin (Margaritifer Trilogy Book 1) (56 page)

Jeff shook his head. “No. That’s
ours.
We
did it.”

Heidi barked, “How we doing FIDO?
Last chance, mess this up and I’m not gonna be happy.”

FDO, “Looking good FLIGHT. Right
down the pipe. Auto-sequence engaged and awaiting orbital insertion burn
ignition in thirteen minutes, twenty seconds.”

“Roger. MOI in thirteen plus
twenty.”

PAO, “Grey Aerospace’
Pathfinder
,
the first entirely private sector Mars explorer, is now thirteen minutes away
from commencing its 40-minute orbital insertion burn. Since World War II,
Airborne Pathfinders have led the way for air assault forces, establishing
navigational aids at drop zones. Grey Aerospace’
Pathfinder
has the same
mission, lighting the way for the first manned mission to Mars, scheduled to
land just two years from now.”

Jeff leaned toward Gabe. “Heidi and
Chrissie both look a lot happier now that they’ve swapped chairs.”

“Yeah, but,” she groaned, “I could
have done without the reminder that in two years
we
will be there.”

“Ah, come on, you’re looking forward
to it.”

“No, really I’m not.”

He chuckled. “Well, look at it this
way, in four years we’ll be back and you’ll be famous.”

She shook her head. “Jeff, I’ve
been on the
Tonight Show
, the cover of
Time Magazine
, dined with
the President at the White House, and testified before the United States
Senate. I’m already famous. You’ll have to do better than that.”

“Okay, I’ll think of something.”

“Good luck.”

PAO, “Mars is presently 142.3
million miles from Earth and one-way communications with
Pathfinder
take
just under thirteen minutes. As such, no further commands can be sent to the
orbiter prior to initiation of the insertion burn.
Pathfinder
is now on
its own. In approximately 26 minutes we will learn whether or not the orbiter’s
main engine is burning to slow it for orbital capture.”

Abby sneered, “Isn’t she the cheery
one. Remind me to smack her.”

Heidi turned around, glared at
Chrissie, and held up her middle finger.

Chrissie grinned.

Jeff frowned. “You think perhaps
Heidi has been down at Michoud too long?”

Gabe shook her head. “She’s an
engineer, what do you expect?”

“Right, and a physicist would never
do that.”

She grinned. “Of course not.”

PAO, “Upon MOI completion,
Pathfinder
will be in a 1,500 by 32,600 kilometer synchronous orbit, making one complete orbit
every 24 hours, 39.6 minutes. During the first orbit, the flight team here at
Grey Aerospace Mission Control will evaluate the orbit and, if it falls within
mission parameters, the lander will detach approximately 21.5 hours following
MOI and three hours and ten minutes after that, touch down in the Margaritifer
Basin.”

26 minutes later a cheer went up
around the room as
Pathfinder
’s telemetry updated indicating main engine
ignition.

Jeff shook his fist. “Yes!”

Gabe hugged him, grinning.

Heidi turned around, wearing a
broad smile, and gave Jeff a thumb up.

He grinned, nodded, and saluted
her.

PAO, “
Pathfinder
has just
reported that its RS-2101C main engine is burning at full thrust.
Pathfinder
’s
main engine, which sits atop the orbiter’s bus, is more than 40-years-old, a
spare remaining from the original
Viking
program that was rebuilt
specifically for this mission by Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne.”

Jeff turned to Abby. “When we’re
done here, tell Chrissie to send PWR a case of champagne.”

She chuckled. “Good idea.”

Forty minutes later, PROP hollered,
“Shutdown!”

Heidi yelled, “GUIDANCE?”

GUIDANCE, “Yeah, FLIGHT, confirm
engine shutdown. Hang on a second. Okay, um periapsis based on radar ranging is
1,503 kilometers.”

Jeff leaped out of his seat,
clapping his hands.

Gabe jumped up and wrapped her arms
around him. “We’re there!”

He gave her a broad grin and
nodded. “Yeah, we’re there.” He kissed her. “Good job.”

Gabe blushed. “Thanks.”

GUIDANCE, “FLIGHT, we’ll have our
first star fix in about twenty minutes, but we’ll want to wait until apoapsis
for full confirmation on orbital parameters.”

FLIGHT, “Rog. Good job.”

PAO, “
Pathfinder
is now in
orbit around Mars. The preliminary orbital parameters appear to be nearly
perfect and, pending final confirmation,
Pathfinder
’s lander should set
down in the Margaritifer Basin in a little over twenty-four hours.”

Wednesday, October 1,
2014 (T minus 538 days)

Gabe yawned and stretched. “I do
wish we could stop doing this in the wee hours of the morning. Two days in a
row… I’m tired.”

Jeff nodded. “Yeah, well, you’ve
got two and a half weeks to catch up on your beauty sleep before the next
round. Once this thing’s on the ground, we can go to bed.”

Her head snapped toward him and her
eyebrows went up.

He felt her stare, but continued
looking at
Pathfinder
’s telemetry data. “Um, okay, that didn’t come out
quite right.”

“You think?”

GUIDANCE, “EDL in three minutes.”

Heidi stood beside the FLIGHT
console. “Rog.” She turned around, looked at Jeff and crossed her fingers.

He smiled and nodded.

PAO, “
Pathfinder
will
commence EDL – Entry, Decent and Landing – in three minutes. It is thirteen
minutes from entry interface, and nineteen minutes from touchdown. The lander’s
velocity is presently 3,924 meters per second. Final position and velocity data
have been uploaded and
Pathfinder
’s onboard inertial navigation computer
is now in charge.”

Jeff shook his head. “And if it
screws up, when we get there I’m gonna take a hammer to it.”

Gabe laughed. “If it screws up,
there won’t be enough left to take a hammer to.”

GUIDANCE, “EDL.”

FLIGHT, “Copy. EDL.”

Jeff took Gabe’s and Abby’s hands
and squeezed. “Here we go.”

PAO, “EDL. In three minutes
Pathfinder
will make a final turn onto its approach vector to the Margaritifer Basin
landing site. The target site is at 13.53º south latitude and 21.58º west
longitude. The landing ellipse for the original Viking missions was 280 by 100
kilometers.
Viking I
missed its target site by 47 kilometers, while
Viking
II
missed by 13.5 kilometers. Using updated technology, much of which was
derived from the MSL, we are hopeful that
Pathfinder
will land within
ten kilometers of the target site.”

“Boss,” said Abby, “what do we do
if it overshoots and lands in one of the big craters northeast of the site?”

Jeff shrugged. “I dunno. Add it to
the list of useless space junk and hope we do better next time.”

GUIDANCE, “Turning to entry
attitude. Flight path angle looks good. Seven minutes to entry interface.”

FLIGHT, “Rog. EI in seven.”

Julio, still sitting MOD, looked over
his shoulder at Jeff. “Email to you from NASA Administrator, Dr. Fairfax, ‘Good
luck.’”

Jeff smiled. “Reply, ‘Thanks. Now I
know how you felt when MSL was on final.’”

Julio grinned and nodded.

“Nice to know they’re watching,”
said Gabe.

“Yeah, I imagine most folks at NASA
and JPL are pretty excited too. And understandably curious.”

For the next seven minutes, Mission
Control was deathly quiet, everyone in the room mesmerized by the video stream
of Martian landscape from the approach camera in
Pathfinder
’s backshell.

Gabe gripped Jeff’s hand tightly.
“Good god. Look at the Valles Marineris.”

“Yeah. I’m trying to imagine what
it will be like looking out the window at that.”

“I’m trying not to.”

GUIDANCE, “Entry interface.”

FLIGHT, “Rog, EI.”

PAO, “
Pathfinder
is now at
an altitude of 126 kilometers, entering Mars upper atmosphere, 572 kilometers
from the landing site, and six minutes twelve seconds from touchdown. Parachute
deployment will occur in four and a half minutes. Chute deployment on the
Viking landers took place at Mach 1.1. However,
Pathfinder
has a newly
designed parachute based on MER and MSL techniques and materials, and will
deploy at Mach 2.05, following MSL’s entry procedure. The new chute decreases
Pathfinder
’s
on-chute ballistic coefficient and reduces the time spent above Mach 1.4,
resulting in reduced parachute area oscillations and, hopefully, improved
landing accuracy. Further, the Viking landers were ballistic on approach,
possessing no guidance system, where
Pathfinder
utilizes an Apollo-like
guidance system derived from MSL, and developed exclusively for this mission by
Grey Aerospace Chief Engineer and mission crewmember, Dr. Gabriel Frederick.”

Jeff winked at Gabe. “And let’s
hope it works.”

Gabe grinned. “It’ll work.”

“Somebody needs to tell Chrissie to
chill,” said Abby.

Jeff glanced at her. “Why?”

“She’s nervous.”

“How do you know?”

“When she gets nervous, you can’t
shut her up.”

Jeff chuckled. “Eh, she’s doing
fine. Leave her alone.”

Gabe gasped and pointed at the
screen. “Look! The Morava Valles. It’s almost there.”

PAO, “
Pathfinder
is
presently crossing over the Morava Valles, approximately 120 kilometers west of
the landing site, at a velocity of 1,135 meters per second. Parachute
deployment is scheduled to take place in 61 seconds. Just to reiterate, owing
to Mars’ distance from Earth and the subsequent communications delay, we are
observing events that actually took place thirteen minutes ago. In fact,
Pathfinder
has been on the ground for about ten minutes now and, hopefully, its first
images from the Margaritifer Basin are already on their way to us.”

GUIDANCE, “Chute deployment in 50
seconds.”

FLIGHT, “Rog. 50 seconds.”

Jeff could feel his pulse and
respiration rates rapidly rise. He gulped.

Susan reached around Gabe and grasped
Jeff’s shoulder. “Calm. It’s not like you’re having kittens.”

He chuckled, nervously. “No, it’s a
lot worse.”

Gabe leaned forward and peered
intensely at the image.

“How’s it look?” said Jeff.

“I don’t know. I can’t… Oh god!”

“What?”

“I think that was the crater at the
southeast end of the Loire Valles chaos. If it was, we’re on the southern edge
of the site. We could be as far south as the crater. Oh god, Jeff, we’re gonna
miss it.”

“By how much?”

“I dunno, 15, 20 kilometers.”

“Are we still going to be in the
plain?”

She whimpered. “I don’t know.”

GUIDANCE, “Chute deployment! And…
WE HAVE A CHUTE!”

A cheer erupted around the room.

FLIGHT, “Copy! Chute.”

The camera image suddenly jerked
westward as
Pathfinder
’s flight path instantly steepened.

“Gabe?” said Jeff.

“I’m not sure. I think we’re okay.
But I’m pretty sure we’re way south.”

He grabbed her shoulder. “It’s okay
Gabe. As long as it finds a flat spot, it’ll be okay. We’re not
that
far
off.”

“I think we may be down near the crater.”

“Well, so long as it doesn’t land
on the rim and tip over, that’d be okay. Just relax, there’s nothing we can do
about it now.”

Gabe was looking very unhappy.

“Come on, Gabe, you got us there.
We’ll be on the ground in a minute. Let’s just be thankful for that.”

“Okay.”

PAO, “
Pathfinder
’s parachute
has deployed, and the craft is rapidly slowing and descending.”

GUIDANCE, “Heat shield jett.”

FLIGHT, “Rog.”

GUIDANCE, “We have radar. 3,900
meters, 133 meters per second. Legs deploying, 30 seconds to backshell jett.”

FLIGHT, “Rog. Radar and 30
seconds.”

The image from
Pathfinder
now only showed a distant Mars horizon as the craft hung vertically from its
parachute.

Gabe shook her head. “God I wish we could have come
up with a way to get a real-time view from the descent camera.”

Jeff nodded. “Yeah, would have been
nice, but we’ll just have to wait. Don’t worry about it.”

GUIDANCE, “1,200 meters, 24 meters
per second and… we have chute and backshell jett.”

PROP, “Ignition on all landing
engines.”

FLIGHT, “Rog. Ignition.”

Images and telemetry suddenly
ceased as
Pathfinder
’s approach camera in the backshell lost power on
separation and the lander switched to an onboard antenna.

PAO, “
Pathfinder
is now in
powered descent. We should reacquire telemetry in about 10 seconds, touchdown in
40 seconds. We should begin receiving images from one of the two scan cameras
about 30 seconds following touchdown. Images from the descent camera are being
stored at this time and will be transmitted later. Those images will be the
best indicators of
Pathfinder
’s exact landing site.”

INCO, “We have a signal on S-band.”

FLIGHT, “Rog. S-band.”

Telemetry reappeared.

GUIDANCE, “50 meters, 20 seconds to touchdown.
Horizontal velocity is zero.”

FLIGHT, “Copy, 50 meters, zero
horizontal.”

Jeff held his breath.

GUIDANCE, “25 meters. 10 seconds.”

FLIGHT, “Rog.”

The entire room collectively held
its breath.

PROP, “Shut down!”

GUIDANCE, “And… CONTACT!”

The room went crazy. Jeff leaped
out of his seat and, grinning broadly, shook his fists.

FLIGHT, “Rog. On the ground.”

PAO, “
Pathfinder
has landed
on Mars!”