Tang Yue moved the solar panels onto the cart and dragged them out of the garage. Old Cat had taken ten solar panels with him. Now, Tang Yue only had thirty solar panels left. Thirty solar panels were not enough to fully support the operation of Kunlun Station. Tang Yue had no choice but to shut down a considerable portion of the power-consuming equipment in the Kunlun Station, leaving only the basic life support and communication systems on.
Kunlun Station's indoor temperature was currently around minus ten degrees Celsius. It was an out-and-out icehouse. Tang Yue was wearing Bright Light Armour to withstand the low temperature. He felt warmer when he moved the solar panels outside than when he stayed indoors.
The sun had risen to mid-air, and it was neither hot nor cold like a big light bulb. Tang Yue looked up in the direction of the sun. Since Mars rotated in the same direction as Earth, from west to east, and the inclination was similar, the orbit of the sun in the celestial sphere was basically similar to that seen on Earth, rising in the east and setting in the west.
Tang Yue unloaded the solar panels from the cart and placed them on the ground. He then plugged in the cables and gently brushed the dust off the surface of the solar panels. The smooth panels reflected a huge round mask.
Tang Yue's face could not be seen clearly from the reflection on the panels. The shadow looked bloated and out of place, like an alien with a huge head. Tang Yue stared at the shadow for a long time. Suddenly, he thought of Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story.
Tang Yue sighed.
Tang Yue never thought that Old Cat would have any problems. The latter was the most reliable among the three of them. Old Cat had stayed in Kunlun Station for many years. He was very experienced and senior, and he was the actual station master of Kunlun Station. However, there was no fixed candidate for the position of station master in Kunlun Station, and the position was held by the commanders of the previous Mars landing missions.
Moving the Chelomey Probe was just a simple matter of picking up a package. It was completely within Old Cat's ability. Driving hundreds of kilometers was impossible for Tang Yue, but it was nothing to Old Cat. In the past, it had successfully completed far more difficult and dangerous tasks. Logically speaking, Old Cat should not have any problems.
Tang Yue really could not figure out what kind of trouble on Mars could cause Old Cat to fall into a situation where they completely lost contact.
Once contact was lost, the space station could not locate the Mars Wanderer. In the past, the location of the Mars Wanderer required Old Cat to take the initiative to contact and report its position. In fact, there were other remote-sensing satellites in Mars orbit. They could actually search for the Mars Wanderer, but these satellites belonged to different countries and institutions. They used different data channels, and authorization was required to use them. Now that Earth had suddenly disappeared, all of these satellites became invalid overnight.
Global positioning had never been an easy task. If you wanted to accurately locate a signal source on the ground in orbit, you would need at least three satellites to do so. The Americans spent decades building a GPS constellation in Earth's orbit to be able to track targets on the ground in real time. Obviously, there was no such thing on Mars.
Without support from Earth, it was really difficult to move around on Mars.
Tang Yue raised his hand to scratch his head, but his hand was blocked by the mask.
The green light on the edge of the solar panel lit up, indicating that it was starting to work normally.
Tang Yue straightened up and looked around. Thirty solar panels were neatly arranged in the battery farm. Not far away was the descent module and garage of the Eagle spacecraft. A hundred meters away was the small Kunlun Station. Tang Yue's world could be said to be very big, but it could also be said to be very small. It was big because he was alone on Mars. The entire planet was his. The world was vast, and he could go wherever he wanted.
It was small because Tang Yue would die wherever he went. He could only live in this small area around Kunlun Station. In the situation where resources and supplies were cut off, all he had was a world destined to be ruined and abandoned.
·
·
·
When Tang Yue set up the solar panels and returned to Kunlun Station, Mai Dong had already completed the first photo shoot. In the fifteen-minute window, Mai Dong took a total of 1,500 photos. The average field of view of each photo was 2,000 square meters. These 1,500 photos together covered an area of about three square kilometers.
"Tang Yue …" Mai Dong let out a long breath. In just fifteen minutes, she was highly focused and did not dare to blink. She was almost exhausted. "The first round of scanning is over. The image file is in the process of being transmitted … The progress is eighty-six percent, eighty-seven percent. Pay attention to receiving it."
The girl leaned against the camera and chuckled. Her hair was stuck to her fair cheeks with sweat.
"How is it?" Mai Dong tilted her head.
"It's really great. Miss, you've been a great help. As expected of a beautiful genius."
Tang Yue removed the life support system of the Bright Light Armour. "Thank you very much!"
Mai Dong numbered all the photos, from one to 1,500, and corresponded them to the map one by one. In the next scan, Mai Dong would continue with the progress of this round until the first thirty square kilometers of the area was completely photographed.
The two immediately began to interpret the images.
However, the interpretation of the images was not easy. In the early days when the resolution of spy satellites was not high enough, the identification of photos required a large number of interpretation experts. This was a highly professional job. Tang Yue and Mai Dong were not professionals and did not know any techniques. They could only use the slowest and most primitive method to carry out a carpet search pixel by pixel.
The optical tracking system used by Mai Dong was not a professional ground observation equipment. The highest resolution was only five meters. The resolution of the photos was very low, and they were all black-and-white photos. Therefore, they could not rely on color to find the Mars Wanderer.
Tang Yue sat in a chair wrapped in a blanket and turned on the computer.
He magnified each photo to the maximum, so big that he could see the pixels. He looked for the missing cat and the missing dog in the mosaic screen.
"Old Cat … Old Cat, where are you?"
Tang Yue stared at the screen, his eyes wide open. His eyes scanned the photos, almost drilling into the computer. "Old Cat, Old Cat, Old Cat, Old Cat, Old Cat …"
Tang Yue clicked the mouse, and the photos passed by his eyes one by one.
On the other hand, Mai Dong did not have time to rest. She took a breath and plunged into the endless photos.
There were more than a thousand photos, and each one looked exactly the same. They were all grayish-black fields and hills. If there were no numbers, Mai Dong would not even be able to tell the difference.
"Tang Yue!
Look at this … Is this the Mars Wanderer? "
"Well … No, this is a piece of plagioclase."
"Tang Yue, what about this one?
I think this one looks like it! "
"No, turn the picture around and look at it from another angle. This is just the shadow of a sand dune."
"This one?"
"Sand dune."
"This one?"
"Sandpit."
Every time Mai Dong came to Tang Yue with a possible image, the latter would be nervous and excited. He would carefully judge, but every time, his excitement would turn into disappointment. Every object that seemed to be the Mars Wanderer would eventually turn out to be a rock or a shadow. Mai Dong and Tang Yue did not want to miss any clues. They were so eager to find the Old Cat that they almost regarded every blurry pixel in the photos as the Mars Wanderer.
In the blurry black-and-white photos, the layers of sand dunes looked like the undulating sea. Tang Yue felt that he was looking for a boat drifting with the waves in the sea, and that the boat might have been overturned by the waves and sunk to the bottom of the sea forever.