Though Mars was already within reach, it was still a little too early to celebrate victory.
Soon, the instant it encountered Mars's gravitational field, the Xu Fu spacecraft faced its toughest test since departure.
Unlike other small, compact spacecraft, a colonization ship of this size and complexity was difficult to accelerate or decelerate.
Especially to decelerate.
If it was too slow, it might fail to catch up with Mars; if it was too fast, it might fly straight through the planet's gravitational field. The Xu Fu spacecraft had a very narrow window for deceleration, and they had to reduce its speed enough for Mars's gravity to capture it within that brief period.
Mars's atmosphere was also too thin for the skipping deceleration maneuvers used at the edge of Earth's atmosphere. They could only slow the spacecraft through reverse thrust.
Fortunately, this was not particularly difficult for Starry Sky Technology's electric propulsion technology.
The portable controlled fusion core activated, and the temperature inside the heating chamber began to soar, instantly vaporizing the propellant fed into it and ionizing it into an energetic plasma.
The temperatures inside the reaction chamber and heating chamber rose higher and higher, like a miniature sun.
As the reactor's output continued to climb, it finally crossed a critical threshold. At that instant, the plasma engine, poised to fire, erupted with azure arcs of light, illuminating the entire second ring at the rear of the Xu Fu spacecraft!
Driven by those azure arcs, the Xu Fu spacecraft briefly accelerated forward.
But this did not last long. As the flow directors deployed, the plasma expelled from the ship began changing direction under the regulation of the magnetic field. Instead of streaming straight backward, it gradually angled forward, spreading like a braking parachute and dragging the Mars-bound Xu Fu spacecraft