Ice Moon 1 The Enceladus Mission

by Brandon Q Morris

  “Uncoupling from mothership initiated,” the AI said. A sharp, metallic sound could be heard from the outside of the hull. The clamps that had been holding the lander were opening.

  “Two seconds braking impulse by main engine.”

  The large, cone-shaped engine burned kerosene for two seconds. Since it was aiming in their direction of flight, the impulse decelerated the lander a little bit, which was sufficient to get it into a lower trajectory. The crew carefully increased the distance between lander and mothership, meter by meter.

  After about a minute, the engine ignited again briefly. Both Watson and Francesca were satisfied. Then it was time for a longer burn that brought them down to an altitude of four kilometers.

  “Radar lock,” Watson now reported. The ground radar had been activated. Martin’s monitor started displaying a false-color image of the surface. Now they needed a last confirmation from the mothership. The repurposed radar antenna was scanning the intended landing site.

  “All systems go. Landing site secure,” Watson confirmed.

  The craft moved quietly toward the shining white moon. Martin remembered their launch from Earth, during which they had been shaken quite a bit. However, Enceladus possessed no atmosphere to speak of.

  “High gate.” Francesca had identified the landing site visually—it was now in sight. Martin switched his monitor to optical display. The landscape below them was craggy, as if someone had wildly stabbed a knife into a slab of butter, which was then frozen and covered by snow. It did not look like there were any smooth areas on which to land.

  “Watson, last check,” the pilot said.

  Their altitude was now three kilometers, which the monitor displayed as 3,000 meters. Due to the mass of Valkyrie, the fuel on board would be just enough to return to the orbit of the mothership. If they descended any lower, they would not be able to abort the mission. Martin felt a lump in his throat.

  The AI replied, “All systems go. Deceleration vector as planned.”

  We are sinking further, Martin noticed.

  “Watson, status of landing struts?” Francesca’s voice was completely calm, though Martin could feel her intense concentration.

  “Landing system go.”

  “1,000 meters. Preparing to land. Watson, automatic landing activated.”

  Martin thought, A completely manual landing in this area would be suicidal. They needed to hit the landing site so there would be enough space for launching Valkyrie.

  Francesca continued, “150 meters. Low gate.”

  Martin felt the craft lean to the side. His heart started to beat faster. During the last part of the approach, the craft took on a typical rocket position. Control jets adjusted it precisely.

  “Prepare to land,” the pilot announced.

  Starting at an altitude of about 100 meters, Martin could not see anything on the optical display anymore. The jet exhaust had stirred up ice crystals from the surface. Martin switched to lidar. The lander was aiming exactly at the center of the small plain below them. Despite this, Martin grabbed hold of his seat and felt his palms becoming moist.

  At an altitude of ten meters, Watson started a countdown. Ten, nine, eight... at two, the main engine turned itself off, and their attitude was only adjusted by the control jets. One... zero. The touchdown of the lander was wonderfully smooth.

  “Looks like we’ve arrived,” Francesca said. Jiaying exhaled loudly and Martin sweated. All of them sat still, and no one cheered. “Rossi to Commander. The Eagle has landed, as they used to say.”

  “Confirming. Congratulations, ground team.” Even Amy’s voice remained very neutral. Martin could understand this. Landing in such low gravity was child’s play. The difficult tasks would start tomorrow.

  December 15, 2046, Enceladus

  How does one move a mass of fifteen tons without a crane? One man in front, one behind. That was the plan Mission Control had come up with for Enceladus. Due to the low gravitational acceleration, which was only about 1/86 of that on Earth, heavy loads could be easily transported on this moon of Saturn. Relatively easily.

  “Hauling stuff is men’s work,” Francesca had said with a laugh, running her hands through her shaggy hair when they discussed the division of labor.

  I don’t mind, Martin thought, even though Francesca has always bench-pressed twice the weight I have. So I will be among the first to step on a celestial body no human has ever explored.

  Initially, they only had two spacesuits available for that. The EMUs had been left behind on the mothership. Instead, the lander possessed two SuitPorts, which were ready and waiting in one of the storage modules symmetrically located at the sides. SuitPorts were practical because they saved space. Instead of entering an airlock, an astronaut would step directly into a spacesuit, which was then closed airtight and uncoupled from the port. Upon returning, the procedure would be reversed; the astronaut backed into position and recoupled the suit.

  Valkyrie had two additional SuitPorts at the rear. Martin imagined how they would glide through the ocean in the vehicle. With these suits it is impossible to tell whether someone is inside them, so it looks as if two astronauts are piggy-backing on Valkyrie.

  The drill vehicle was not ready for action, though. It was standing high above the habitat module, held by steel scaffolding. Hayato and Martin now had the task of hauling the fifteen-ton object down and preparing it for launch at a safe distance from the lander. On Enceladus, Valkyrie only weighed 170 kilograms, so it was not a heroic task for two men to handle it.

  Martin already wore his LCVG, his thermal onesie. The four of them had spent the night in the habitat module. Hayato had been snoring so Martin did not get much sleep. I feel sorry for Jiaying, he thought. She will have to listen to it for many nights to come, although she looks well-rested this morning. The exit procedure resembled the one used during an EVA. Enceladus possessed no atmosphere to speak of. Here, near the South Pole of Enceladus, water vapor could be detected, but the atmospheric pressure was eleven magnitudes below that on Earth. They were basically moving in a vacuum, even though it was not as cold as in space. Siri had reported minus 150 degrees Celsius for today.

  Martin had already finished a part of the pre-breathing phase. He was still sweating from his minutes on the stationary bicycle. I will have to spend a lot more time on this torture device to compensate for at least part of the effects low gravity will have on my body.

  “Get going,” he heard Francesca’s voice say through the loudspeaker.

  He swung his legs into the round opening in front of him. It was easier to put on an EMU than handling a SuitPort, which was like a full-body glove. He had to put each limb into the proper opening without being able to see it. It was impossible to bend down and adjust something, as the upper part was still rigidly attached to the lander. He cursed when he hit the wrong leg opening, which caused his LCVG to shift. “DAMMIT. Once more from the start,” Martin muttered under his breath.

  Uncoupling was particularly tricky. He could not turn around to check whether the suit was securely closed, but must rely on the readouts, which was difficult for him to do because he knew all of the software had been programmed by error-prone humans. He would have preferred if someone had controlled everything directly from the lander, but how was that supposed to work when both of them were walking outside?

  He finally succeeded. The arms of the suit could be moved. He touched the tool belt and activated the helmet radio. He heard heavy breathing. Hayato seemed to be struggling too. He looked at a brightly lit white metal container. The side facing him had a door.

  “Neumaier is ready.”

  “Confirming,” Francesca said, “Hayato?”

  “Wait just a moment. I just have to... arrg... okay, the lining of the glove had... never mind, Masukoshi is ready.”

  “Opening exit.”

  The door across from him disappeared into the wall. A new, shiny white world was waiting for him. I know Enceladus is the brightest of all moons and refle
cts the most light, but seeing it with my own eyes... He started to shiver. The faceplate of his helmet automatically darkened. I really wish I could just run ahead. However, they had agreed on a different sequence.

  Hayato Masukoshi was supposed to enter the history books as the first human on Enceladus. The four-person ground team had agreed on this yesterday. Martin watched his first steps from the hatch. Small metal stairs led downward. To the right and left Martin saw landing struts. Hayato’s first step was still normal, but then he pushed off with too much force. Despite the heavy spacesuit, a spring scale would only indicate two kilograms here. My fellow astronaut did not take this into account. The large area of ice in front of him must have been too tempting. Martin saw how Hayato slowly floated downward. A few hours later, these images would be shown on all major news programs worldwide. They would make it very obvious this particular world was quite different from the moon or Mars.

  Martin followed Hayato, careful not to put too much force into his steps. Nevertheless, he could not avoid turning his first step into a jump. Even though he was on a moon, he must remember to move more like in the weightlessness of space.

  After only a few meters, Martin had adjusted to these conditions because he had trained long enough in low gravity. The visible horizon and the clear distinction between ‘up’ and ‘down’ no longer confused his senses. He used his glove to wipe his visor, on which a few ice crystals had settled.

  Martin looked around. In front of him there was a plain that might have been a snow-covered meadow. However, the snow, consisting of fine ice crystals, only formed a very thin layer. He stepped on hard, smooth ice with each of his steps. Martin attempted to slide, but when he tried to gain momentum like he was used to on Earth, he simply bounced off the hard ice. At least it would be difficult to accidentally slip and fall, as hardly any force pulled him downward. At the end of the landing plain a steep slope cast hard, dark shadows. It was the contrast that showed him the change in terrain, which the highly reflective surface would have otherwise hidden.

  The sun shone above the horizon at an angle of about 20 degrees. Here, close to the South Pole, it would never rise above 27 degrees. Martin shivered when he saw the sun, since it was much, much smaller in the Enceladus sky than back on Earth. The sun moved across a deep black background sprinkled with many stars. The stars appeared more hostile here, rather than inducing the peaceful feeling he remembered from balmy nights on Earth. They had a piercing, unflinching, pitiless look. It was probably because they did not twinkle, as their light was not being refracted by an atmosphere.

  Martin was most impressed by Saturn. The planet seemed to be affixed to the eastern horizon. It did not move its position because Enceladus always turned the same face toward it, like Luna, the Latin name for our moon, does toward Earth. From Martin’s perspective, the planet looked like a huge brown mountain that rose to an enormous height on the horizon. The rings, however, were only visible as a narrow line close to the horizon.

  Directly on this line, like a bead on a thin string, Martin saw a bright sphere that looked to be as large as the moon of Earth. This was Mimas—sometimes called the Death Star, since on some photos it resembles the space station of Emperor Palpatine in the old Star Wars movies. Martin could not see the huge crater, Herschel, that was responsible for this nickname. Maybe Jiaying will have more luck in the coming weeks, he thought.

  “Enough sightseeing,” Hayato said via helmet radio. “We have plenty of work to do.”

  He’s right. Martin stopped walking, straightened his knees, and almost lifted off. They must lower Valkyrie down to the ice. The mission planners had come up with a simple yet effective method—they would use a slide that would be unrolled, a pulley, some climbing, and a lot of muscle power.

  First Hayato would have to climb 60 meters to the top of the metal scaffolding and attach the pulley.

  “You’re sure you don’t want to do this job?” he asked Martin.

  “Climbing up to the sixth floor? No thanks.”

  However, since they weighed only two kilos each, climbing was neither as arduous nor as dangerous as on Earth. Hayato could proceed without a safety line. Despite this, Martin heard Hayato groan as he climbed. The bulky space suit is not exactly the perfect climbing outfit, Martin thought.

  “Okay, the pulley has been hooked up,” Hayato reported.

  The next station was the upper part of the drill vehicle. It had an attachment point for one end of the rope.

  “Rope latched on to Valkyrie.”

  While Hayato was climbing back down, Martin fetched the slide. It was a thick plastic tarp, about four meters wide. It was intended to show Valkyrie the way, and also to protect the lander. One end would be attached behind the drill vehicle, the roll would be passed underneath it, and then unrolled all the way to the ground. This time, it was Martin’s turn. I’m glad I only have to climb up a couple of meters.

  “Slide attached,” he reported. In the meantime, Hayato had started to unscrew a bolt in part of the steel scaffolding that had secured Valkyrie in space. This was not dangerous as long no one gave Valkyrie a nudge. After he had loosened all of the bolts with his special tool, Hayato shoved the steel scaffolding away. It fell slowly and silently to the side, and he dragged it behind the lander.

  Now the exciting part began. Hayato first secured himself to the lander with a short rope. He then took up the slack on the rope that ran through the pulley, while Martin unrolled the slide. Its upper end would give the rear of Valkyrie a push that was supposed to make the vessel lean and slowly slide down on the tarp. Hayato was to control how fast the drill vehicle moved through the amount of force he exerted on the pulley rope. On Earth, such a maneuver would have been impossible, but here a single man with a good safety line could control the movement of an entire vehicle by using a basic pulley system.

  “And... go!” commanded Martin as he pulled on the tarp, so Hayato would pull the line at the right time. Valkyrie wobbled, but it did not tilt. He gave the tarp another strong pull. This time it worked. The drill vehicle started to slide down centimeter by centimeter. Hayato gave out the line a bit more quickly, and Valkyrie moved faster in response. Martin kept the tarp taut, so the vehicle had a clear path downward. He heard Hayato’s heavy breathing through his helmet radio.

  “You are doing quite well, guys,” Francesca said.

  Little by little, Valkyrie got closer to the ground. Its rear was now aiming directly at Martin. If Hayato lets go of the line, I will have to skedaddle. Martin started to laugh. It looked as if two people in spacesuits were coming toward him, but upside down, as the SuitPorts at the stern of Valkyrie were turned around by 180 degrees.

  The pilot’s voice came through the helmet radio. “Everything okay with you?”

  “It’s perfect, Francesca,” Martin replied. “Look through my helmet camera and you will understand.”

  He heard the two women in the lander giggle.

  “Watch out that they don’t catch you,” both women said, almost in unison.

  “Don’t worry, I’m watching.”

  After half an hour, Valkyrie was lying in front of them. Hayato detached the line and returned the pulley to the storage module. Then he walked toward Martin carrying two new rope pulleys.

  “One for you,” Hayato said.

  The rope on the pulley reminded Martin of fishing line. It was lightweight and thin, but very tough. Besides this, Hayato had brought a kind of gun and two diverter pulleys. First Martin latched a rope to each side of Valkyrie. He used the gun to shoot two anchors into the ice at the target location and attached pulleys to each. Then he ran each rope around one of the pulleys and returned to Hayato, handing off a rope to him. Now both men walked toward the lander. Pushing Valkyrie across the ice was harder than he would have thought. The vehicle did not even weigh 200 kilos. However, he and Hayato weighed only two kilos each. Due to this fact, they could not provide enough resistance to move the drill vehicle. Instead, they would have simply slipp
ed. Therefore they had to use the help of the much heavier lander. They anchored themselves to it so they could use their muscle power and the ropes running through the diverter pulleys to move Valkyrie across the ice.

  “Heave-ho,” Martin commanded, and they pulled as hard as they could. The lander gave them support. This was the hardest physical labor Martin had undertaken in the last several months. Those damn mission planners. They could have supplied a motorized winch. Things got easier after they overcame the static friction and could use a hand-over-hand method to maintain Valkyrie’s motion. Martin sweated. Water ran across his face, but he could not wipe it away. Damned spacesuit, he thought.

  “Good. That’s enough already,” Francesca’s voice said. Martin stopped at once. Hayato complained since they had not reached the planned distance.

  “That is 30 meters, and it should be enough,” the pilot said. “Believe me, those mission planners always exaggerate the safety requirements. What could happen, after all?”

  Hayato did not say a word. He seemed to be thinking. He finally gave in. “Okay, then we are coming inside.”

  Suddenly, Francesca said, “Just a moment—the laser concentrator. I would like to test it today.”

  “Sure,” Hayato said, “let’s do it.”

  The man obviously has way too much energy, Martin thought.

  The concentrator was a module that looked like a barrel with legs. Together they got it from the lander and carried it close to the launch point. Hayato used his nail gun to attach the legs of the barrel, which had a diameter of about 1.5 meters, to the ice, so it could no longer be easily moved. Then he took off the lid. Below it they could see the parabolic mirror that would focus the laser beam from the spaceship. After traversing several kilometers, the cone of light would definitely be frayed, the more so the greater the wavelength of the light was. Hayato pressed a button and a charging indicator appeared. The concentrator had a rechargeable battery on board to compensate for brief signal failures. However, it could only provide full energy for a few seconds, or, alternatively, backup power for a few hours. The charging indicator was red. Hayato pressed another button, and now a yellow LED showed the position signal was online. This allowed the mothership to aim the laser beam at the concentrator with pinpoint precision.