December 17, 7 p.m.

A thousand meters above the moon's south pole, one of the Chang'e-5 mission's three landers adjusts its engine vents to rapidly reduce altitude.

It contained two large spiders bought by the space agency, and they landed in the Qom impact crater, 430 kilometers from the landing site of the Chang'e-4 mission, still in the Aitken Basin.

After getting the Explorer 2 basic platform provided by Xinyuan, the space agency added a lot of scientific research equipment by itself, and the functions of the two Yutu-3 are different and can assist each other.

In order to distinguish them, they are also named Yutu No. 3 A and Yutu No. 3 B, these two nearly half-ton and self-sustaining robot space agencies are extremely loved, and the treasure is very good.

Xinyuan's two landers landed at the predetermined location four hours ago, and they made several more circles to make sure they were safe, and they also used the "Laurel" resource exploration satellite to assist in positioning, and then they began to enter the landing procedure.

According to the convention, the landing process is live, although the lunar landing mission space agency has done a lot, but the 5.8-ton lander is still a little nervous, and there is a lot of equipment on the lander!

The operator confirmed many times that the landing procedure was correct, and the landing vehicle's descent attitude was fairly stable, and everything seemed to be normal.

The altitude gradually dropped from 1,000 meters to 500 meters and 300 meters, and the 20KN variable-thrust hydrogen-oxygen engine on the lander began to gradually increase its power, and the sharp-eyed staff could even see the moon dust blown up on the lunar surface.

Wait, something seems wrong.

Why do you seem to see a little dark reflection?

But before he could make a closer look, the lander had descended to a distance of about 10 meters, and a powerful tail flame blew away the lunar dust on the lunar surface, revealing something unusual below.

The lander's landing program was still unaware of any problems, and the sensors told it that everything was fine, that the fuel was 15% rich, so it pushed the throttle valve to 50% one last time, held for about 1 second, and then the lander was able to land peacefully.

Someone in the command center was already standing up, but the operator couldn't do anything, and the signal delay for the engine to respond was about five seconds at the shortest, so it was too late.

Ordinary people watching the live broadcast on TV and the Internet still don't understand what is wrong, but in front of the computer of an ESA employee who fishes and watches the broadcast, a participant in the asteroid probe project "smack" to his feet.

"Water! Ice! ”

In the Qom crater, the lander's last meter drop lasted for more than a second under the action of the engine's 1-ton thrust, and the bare ice directly below it was also subjected to the high temperature of ablation, melting and evaporating, and the camera at the bottom of the lander was flooded by a cloud of boiling water vapor.

The live broadcast screen also showed this change a few seconds later, and everyone knew that there was an accident, but the boiling water vapor turned into ice crystals immediately after escaping due to the low temperature of the vacuum, and the 20KN variable thrust engine was also turned off.

The support leg of the lander smashed into the ice and slid out a little distance, because the crater burned by the tail flame just now was a little tilted, but it did not affect the use, and the landing procedure felt very good, and sent a standby signal to the relay "Queqiao" satellite, which was forwarded to the earth.

But what they don't know is that the Chang'e-5 ground control center has swept away the serious atmosphere and become restless.

……

"What? Ice? The Chinese have discovered the ice! ”

Claire hung up and turned on her phone, and the trending message on Twitter had changed to "Yutu-3A has found ice in the moon".

The clock went back to three hours ago.

The Chang'e-5 ground command center was present at the time of Shen Zuozhou, who had just returned to the ground after completing space training a few days ago, and he had two guesses in his mind at that time:

Either the lander shit landed on a piece covered only by a thin layer of lunar soil, or the fabled exposed part of the ice at the south pole of the moon; Either there is a piece of ice meteorite that falls on the moon to form debris that happens to hit it.

If the former is the case, then it could be used as a place for the construction of a lunar base.

So he immediately ordered to release the two robots of Yutu No. 3 A and B to conduct random drilling in a 1-kilometer area around, and the lander's fixed-point sampling equipment can drill down to 5 meters, and start working now.

The fixed-point analysis of the lander will take a little time, and the results will be available after the live broadcast, but this is irrelevant.

Because when Yutu-3B jumped out of the lander and went in the opposite direction of Yutu-3A, the eight feet that fell passed through the lunar soil less than 10 cm thick, because the low friction of the ice was not sliding normally, and the traveling AI frantically alarmed, but fortunately, the attitude was stabilized through the eight flexible spider legs and continued to move forward.

A total distance of 100 meters, almost every step can touch the ice, and finally Yutu No. 3B stopped at a high ground, two forefeet pulled downward, this time digging a shallow pit of nearly 30 centimeters, and there was still muddy ice underneath.

Half an hour after the lander landed, the original procedures of the two planes shooting each other and flag-waving were not done, and they were frantically digging pits everywhere under the command of Shen Zuozhou.

The two Jade Rabbit No. 3 each advanced more than 100 meters, finding ice less than 40 cm below the lunar surface in 5 of the 6 random locations.

The lander's drilling has also reached its limit, with ice at a depth of 5 meters.

Shen Zuozhou immediately estimated in his heart, even if it is a circular area of more than 100 meters that has been proven, if there is 5 meters of ice, it is almost 200,000 tons of ice!

200,000 tons of ice, 20,000 tons of hydrogen and 180,000 tons of oxygen can be produced by electrolysis!

The moon base is here!

At this time, most of the people who watched the live broadcast only thought it was strange, the scheduled program jumped far without two jade rabbits, and the command center felt a little messy until the end of the live broadcast.

But there were also quite a few people in the industry who watched the live broadcast, and an ESA employee was the first to announce that the Qom impact crater could have been caused by an ice meteorite impact, or because the meteorite impact exposed a small part of the moon's ice.

In either case, the Qom crater is about 4.3 kilometers in diameter and is expected to have at least 8.7 million tons of ice, enough to fuel and live on a large lunar base.

This speculative article, combined with the anomaly in the live footage of the space agency, immediately caused a huge sensation in the spacecraft, although there have been various indirect evidence of the existence of a large ice layer on the lunar surface over the years, but there has been no conclusive discovery.

However, the Chang'e-5 mission actually discovered such a large layer of ice, doesn't this mean that the lunar base is about to become a reality?

Ice can directly produce oxygen and hydrogen, and there are so many inorganic substances in the lunar soil, and it is not impossible to produce methane and ammonia, which can completely support a base!

In the time when the outside world began to ferment, the Aviation Development Committee finally released the news three hours later:

"The Chang'e-5-1 lander is suspected to have found ice crystals in the Qom impact crater in the Aitken Basin at the south pole of the moon, and Chinese scientists are organizing more analysis activities."

(End of chapter)