"Birdie, I'm Texas, can you hear me?

Birdie, I'm ......"

Reed Wiseman sat in the command compartment of the Orion spacecraft, picked up the microphone and called over and over again.

Artemis II arranged different call signs for the command module and the lander according to the custom of the Apollo period, the lander piloted by Victor was called "Little Bird", and the command module was "Texas".

It is now 21:02 Beijing time, and the Dawn No. 3 on the moon has just completed the flag-raising ceremony, celebrating the official start of the Guanghan Palace No. 1 base, and is already preparing to stop the live broadcast for the operation task.

And according to the plan, the "Little Bird" should also land about 35 kilometers away from Aurora 3.

But 30 minutes ago, Wiseman knew it wasn't possible.

It was the final stage of the descent, and Victor maneuvered the HLS to complete the last major attitude adjustment, by which time the landing point was already aimed at the intended landing area, and the mission was about to be successful.

More than half an hour ago, Koch reported that the leaking tank's sensors had reacted, but both Houston and themselves agreed that there was no risk to be ignored.

Even Koch didn't even close the alarm, it itself stopped the warning because the pressure dropped to zero.

After a while, everyone felt that there was no risk, and that the final landing would be perfectly fine even if it was manually operated by the astronauts, and with more than half of the fuel left, it looked like it would be smooth.

However, at this time, Wiseman suddenly heard an exclamation from Victor on the 'Little Bird':

"Shit, it's not responding."

"What's going on, Victor?"

"Zizi...... Minor problem, it seems that there is something wrong with the communication module...... Zizi ...... Is it being adjusted...... Zizi ...... Beep-"

The call mixed with loud electrical noise ended abruptly, and the "beep" sound was supposed to be Victor turning off the microphone.

After a few seconds, his voice reappeared, this time the quality of the call was clear.

"Hey, hey? I'm Victor. ”

Houston: "This is Houston, 'Little Bird,' why the communication was cut off. ”

"I don't know, the main communication module just went on strike, but I enabled backup communication, and now there is no problem, that's it."

While it is true that a communication failure is not an immediate fatal problem, the astronauts in Houston and the "Portal" are beginning to look for problems, and "Little Bird" continues to concentrate on the landing mission.

However, less than a minute later, Victor's voice rang out again:

“fuck！ Navigation failure, navigation failure!

The electronic navigator loses the signal, it doesn't work, it fails! ”

The astronauts on the other end of the radio and Houston immediately raised their hearts, the "Blue Moon" is equipped with two electronic navigation systems and an inertial navigation system, which is a guarantee to ensure that the astronauts accurately enter orbit and land at the intended location, once they lose control of the position, the situation will become extremely dangerous.

Without guidance from the ground, Victor began to reboot and introduce backups according to the emergency operation manual, but after two or three minutes of busy work, he did not hear any good news.

At this time, Wiseman heard Claire's calm voice:

"Birdie, I'm Claire Boden, give up the landing mission and re-orbit with the remaining fuel, and Wiseman will come to pick you up;

Repeat, immediately abandon the landing mission, Artemis II mission canceled, immediately into orbit, immediately into orbit! ”

After a full minute, perhaps after a final effort to no avail, Victor chose to give up:

"Houston, I'm going to manually re-enter the 30km orbit and 'Little Birdie' will abandon the mission."

Due to the strike of electronic navigation, Victor wisely chose to activate the fully manual mode to manipulate the lander, and it was also at this time that Lin Ju saw the rising height.

But after only about a minute of re-acceleration, Wiseman heard both Koch and Victor scolding at the same time:

"There was a power outage, there was a power outage in the cabin, we lost power!

All the lights are gone, I can't see anything now, oh, the engine stops, the engine stops! ”

NACA immediately switched to the live stream and began to rescue "Birdie" with all its might, but communication became choppy again.

Even the closer "Gateway" space station received an incomplete radio signal, and could not even hear a complete sentence, only the dangerous situation of the two astronauts could be felt by sound.

At 20:47, the "Bird" disappeared from the radar, and communication was completely interrupted.

This indicates that its trajectory has deviated too much and is out of the range of directional radar.

The entire Houston instantly fell into a state of frenzy, desperately activating the emergency plan, and at the same time demanding that the astronauts on the "portal" keep calling.

They also quickly came up with the idea of a way to monitor earthquakes, and the probes who landed on the lunar surface would be equipped with such devices to detect the geological structure and mineral composition of the lunar surface, and Isis had the most sensitive detector on board.

Fifteen minutes later, Isis did not report any impact fluctuations, indicating that the engine must have restarted successfully, but it was not known where it landed or re-entered orbit - of course, it could also crash, and if it was too far away, the seismic monitor would not be able to detect it.

"Reed, give me back."

Jeremy Hansen took the intercom from Wiseman and continued the call:

"Birdie, this is Texas, please inform ......"

Wiseman leaned wearily against the porthole, his brain racing and thinking about the current situation:

As long as he didn't lose power, he believed that Victor would definitely be able to control the lander, and HLS still retained the most basic mechanical transmission control, and Victor had undergone 150 hours of special training to believe in his ability.

There is still a lot of fuel left, after all, the HLS is the overall lander, the best choice is to enter orbit, and the most likely and best result is that they have already entered orbit and must be trying to find a way to get in touch;

If it is a landing, it is definitely a more serious failure in the cabin and even the orbit operation cannot be completed, and the landing will become very dangerous, with a death probability of at least 50%.

The lander has considered extreme conditions, not only has a separate emergency kit, but also has a communication device on the spacesuit, so theoretically it should still be able to be contacted as long as it is not dead.

Calculating the time, if they choose to land, they should have arrived at the lunar surface in 20 minutes at most, and if they don't get any more news, I'm afraid they will have to ask for international help.

However, there is another problem that also makes Wiseman very confused, first the communication module, then the navigator, and finally the entire cabin is without power, which means that the entire electrical system is in trouble and strikes one after another, such a big hidden danger should not be found out during the inspection.

And that weird sensor, although there is no evidence, he always feels something related.

(End of chapter)