Two months later.
To be precise, 65 days later.
Mars, the fourth planet in the Solar System.
Three landing capsules flew slowly along a Mars-synchronous orbit.
"Calling Houston, this is Pathfinder One. We have successfully entered orbit. Please respond if you read us!"
Radio waves radiated from the lead landing capsule, crossing 82 million kilometers toward the blue Earth!
(I spent ages looking but couldn't find the data, so I'm ignoring the relative movement of Mars and Earth over these two months...)
Earth, the Ground Control Center in Houston, United States.
Chris stood at the command console in a white lab coat, his face tense as he stared fixedly at the large screen ahead.
"Still no word from Pathfinder One?"
Chris asked in a low voice.
A researcher beside him shook his head and promptly replied, "Nothing yet!"
"Damn it..." The corner of Chris's eye twitched twice, and an ominous thought crossed his mind.
Could something have gone wrong?
According to their original calculations, Pathfinder One should have successfully entered Mars-synchronous orbit five minutes ago!
A crewed spaceflight spanning 82 million kilometers was a first in all of human history.
Even setting everything else aside, the communication delay of several minutes alone was enough to give them a serious headache!
A distance of 82 million kilometers meant an electromagnetic signal needed 546.6 seconds to make a round trip.
In other words, for a message to travel from Pathfinder One to Earth and then back again, even without accounting for the time spent responding, it took more than nine full minutes!
What did nine minutes mean?
Put simply, if an emergency occurred during the landing, by the time the Ground Control Center responded, the three astronauts' ashes would probably already be scattered evenly across the surface of Mars!
"Professor, could