For the lander and Valkyrie, an area of 50 by 100 meters will suffice. Jiaying is correct. However, we have to aim extremely well, Martin considered.
Amy spoke up, “Watson, do you have any objections to this kind of landing site?”
“The approach until t-10 seconds is 99.5 percent safe. If course corrections become necessary after t-10, the probability of a mission failure would be 80 percent,” Watson replied.
“The AI wants to say the following: ‘If we decide shortly before the landing that for some reason we want to land somewhere else, that would be bad,’” Martin explained.
The doctor abruptly asked, “What kind of reason?”
“Well, Marchenko, we will only know that when it happens,” replied Martin.
“No idea?”
Martin shook his head, but Jiaying answered for him, “Perhaps once we reach a low altitude the radar will indicate the plate we are aiming for is unstable, for instance, because of an inclusion underneath it. Or we suddenly realize we are about to land in the middle of a garden kept by an inhabitant of Enceladus.”
“Can’t we take precautions?” Marchenko stood up and stretched.
“Radar has certain limitations we can’t do anything about, certainly not from orbit, even when we are very close to the surface,” explained Jiaying.
“Any other objections?” the commander asked, looking at the crew.
“If we land in the middle of a chaotic area, a rescue mission would be difficult,” Hayato said.
“We won’t have to worry about that. A rescue mission from the spaceship is impossible. And by the time help arrived from Earth… we can forget about it.” Jiaying smiled.
“To be honest, Watson’s suggestion looks convincing to me, Jiaying,” Amy said.
“Commander, with all due respect,” Jiaying began, “we have to consider the length of the mission. Ice with an additional thickness of 2,500 meters, as to be expected near Watson’s suggested landing location, this would be 5,000 meters both ways. Four weeks at least in Valkyrie, if the ice is as clear as the geologists expect. Landing between the stripes would give us a month’s leeway.”
“Just a moment,” Hayato said. “The problem is we obviously cannot study the selected landing site.”
“Correct,” Martin answered.
Hayato seemed to have an idea. “This means we have to increase the power of the radar system. However, that appears impossible, as it is technically optimized.” Hayato had his eyes closed, as if he was concentrating on some drawing appearing in his head. “For radar to be powerful, it needs a transmitter and an antenna. We’ve got both on the ship. We use it to radio Earth. If we aim it at the landing site, would that solve our problem?”
“Certainly,” the commander said, not hesitating for long.
“Siri, can we turn the ship in such a way that the radio antenna is aimed toward the surface of Enceladus?” Amy asked.
The AI responded, “Confirmed, with certain limitations.”
“What limitations?”
“As the antenna always aims itself at Earth, the direction toward Earth must be behind Enceladus.”
“I understand, Siri. Are there any other remarks—or dangers to consider?”
“No dangers.”
“Siri, what would the procedure look like?” Amy asked.
“Fire control jets for two seconds, wait for seventeen seconds, fire jets again for two seconds.”
“Siri, initiate suggested maneuver. Authorization has been given by the commander.”
“Maneuver starting in three, two, one. Now.”
Martin saw that Enceladus was slowly moving out of the porthole. He had to turn away, as he would otherwise get nauseous. He checked his watch and silently counted, “Fifteen seconds, twenty seconds.” Outside of the porthole, only the starry sky could be seen.
“Rotation completed,” Siri reported.
“Good, then I am going to take care of the antenna,” Hayato said, and floated out of the room.
December 14, 2046, Enceladus
The crew could not have chosen a drearier location for their goodbyes. The garden module was now a sad sight. Because a large part of the spaceship had been exposed to a near-vacuum for several hours when the drives failed, they had mostly given up on the cultivation of the CELSS. Martin noticed something fresh and green growing in a container in the very back corner. The commander had promised she would try to restart the cultivation module during the time she and Marchenko would spend alone in the ship, so there would be fresh food available during their return trip.
The lack of growing things had one advantage, though. It was not smelly here, and the air was not hot and muggy. The module looked like a storage room that had been emptied, with strange shelves on the sides and in the middle. At the right side, as seen when one floated in from the command module, there was a centrally located hatch with a large wheel. Behind it was the passage to the lander module that up to now had been terra incognita to them. While they had trained in a replica of it on Earth, the module itself was completely virginal. Since yesterday the AI had prepared it for human occupation, meaning it was heated and had a suitable air pressure. Furthermore, all on-board computers had been started up and their software updated.
The lander module offered room for four. Its life support system was not as powerful as that of the mothership, and there was a two-month supply on board that could be stretched to three months. It used a conventional rocket engine.
The commander typed something on a number pad next to the wheel.
“All systems online,” the AI then reported. Along their year-long journey they had made jokes about why the module had been locked via a number code.
“I am sure they are keeping clones of us there, in case we don’t make it,” Marchenko had said with a diabolical grin. This does not seem completely impossible, Martin considered, since it will be an enormous PR disaster if only dead astronauts return to Earth. On the other hand, I doubt NASA can keep something like that secret for more than three weeks.
The commander now turned the wheel one rotation to the left and opened the hatch to the lander.
“Boo,” Marchenko yelled, seeming to remember his earlier joke, but no clone came out. However, no one wanted to take the first step into the lander module.
“One of you should go. Come on. After all, I am going to stay here,” the commander said after an awkward ten seconds. Finally Martin plucked up his courage. The hatch was part of a short passage, with a second hatch on the other side that was already open. Hayato entered after him. He had wrapped his son against his chest with a cloth. Then Jiaying came in. The time for their separation had not yet come. Martin wrinkled his nose. The air seems to be stale, but that cannot be. It is fresher than anything circulating in the mothership since it has not yet streamed through the lungs of anyone present. Somehow he had expected everything to be covered in dust, but the metal surfaces shone as if they had just come straight from the factory. A ship, newly built and in space, was about the least dusty place one could imagine, a paradise for allergy sufferers, at least until people moved in.
The lander module appeared small to him. It measured about two by two by three and a half meters. In comparison, the spaceship seemed huge. In this crowded space, Hayato and Jiaying would have to spend weeks while Valkyrie broke through the ice and searched for life in the ocean.