My Little Pony: My Little Pony The Martian

AMICITAS Mission Three – Mission Day 224

ARES 3 solar day 222

[08:11] Watney: The Dust Bowl is over. I have to go out and clean the solar panel array. While waiting for the dust storm to pass we made several repairs to the Sojourner's internal circuitry. Judging from our findings, the probability of this detector surviving is low. It certainly looks like a short circuit has occurred, and our guess here is that the build-up of static electricity following the loss of the Sojourner's discharge brush caused a partial meltdown of the harness connecting the solar panel to the power supply board. This is bad news for the rest of the circuit and the CPU. Our only hope is that inspection also revealed that a large number of the pins connecting the CPU and PROM chips to the motherboard were broken, so it's possible that the static surge didn't damage them.

So we want to do another test to see if there is any chance of saving it. I've gone out to clean up. Please tell me how you want me to operate the experiment.

[08:38] JPL: Mr. Watney, Ms. Dragonfly, this is JPL Tim. The Pathfinder team is on standby and ready to send Sojourner activation instructions. However, command sending and receiving cannot be carried out at the same time as the Pathfinder conversation, so we need you to close the client on the No. rover before taking the Sojourner outside the cabin. We will issue a command to order the Sojourner to start and perform a -degree rotation on the spot with the wheels. If there is no response from Sojourner, we can confirm that further attempts at repair may be in vain. Regardless of the outcome, please take the sojourner back to the habitation module ninety minutes after closing the conversation and reactivate the Pathfinder application of Rover . We wait for good news.

[09:02] Watney: Got it. Rover should have been powered off by the time you received this message.

Half of the sojourner's brain is located in its own limited onboard circuitry - the CPU and PROM chips are responsible for regulating its own health during the flight to Mars and relaying orders for the execution of the mission. The other half is inside the Pathfinder. While actually issuing instructions, it also records the historical activities of the sojourner, analyzes the data collected by the rover, and forwards it back to Earth.

They parted ways almost forty years ago, when Pathfinder's unreliable power system, which had triggered many computer restarts since the beginning of the mission and seriously threatened the progress of the mission, finally died. The two halves of the brain have been separated since then. . The rover's schizophrenic mind was forced into safe mode, trying its best to estimate the approximate position of the lander and return to its original location, waiting for the next instruction from the mother body that would never come.

For ninety days the little rover has been busy, working wonders on its meager power supply, which is designed to only work for five days after it separates from the lander. Then, after receiving many inarticulate and incoherent murmurs, the only voice it could hear fell silent, and soon the entire universe fell silent. The severe cold of Mars and the flying sand and stones dug an unnamed grave for it. As it slept peacefully, it never noticed the internal damage caused by the natural force of water dripping through the stone over the years.

Now its world comes alive again. As the altitude rose, it found itself surrounded by unfamiliar surroundings. It was on a flat surface, and part of the surrounding landscape was still moving on its own. The sojourner just looked on without saying a word. It heard no intelligible words; there were no orders to be executed, and all emergency procedures had been implemented; so it just remained motionless, maintaining its long-standing fixed posture.

It sends a ping request to its mother body in response, but nothing is heard from it.

The long-term blowing of Martian dust has worn away the protective cover of the onboard camera, and its view is somewhat blurred. But it can still see the interlacing of light and shadow and the movement of outlines in the outside world. Those hazy images represent that it has been lifted up and moved to another place. The world before him turned monolithic for a few minutes, then opened up into the afternoon light, which was as dim as when it first arrived.

It was lowered to the ground, next to the shadow cast by something huge. It sent out another ping request. no respond.

Just when it was about to send out its third ping request, a voice it had been waiting for for a long time came out of the silence. This voice commands it to report its current status.

Sojourner immediately ran a system diagnostic and sent back the results, as if forty years had passed and it was not worth mentioning.

The voice that gave the order then ordered it to turn the wheel in a specific way, making a full revolution in place.

Sojourner followed the instructions step by step, notifying the lander when the designated maneuver was to begin and sending a message that the maneuver was completed.

Then the voice gave the final command: standby.

The sojourner obeys his advice. It doesn't have many options in this area, but it doesn't care. It's a machine. And machines have infinite patience.

however……

The robot's mind is too simple to think independently, but if the sojourner has a spirit, it may shed tears of joy at this moment. After decades of waiting, it finally came full circle.

At the same time, two larger figures began to dance beside it for no apparent reason.

"It's alive!" Dragonfly giggled and danced on the surface of Mars wearing a space suit. "The robot is alive!"

"By the way, don't forget that you have to be responsible for feeding it and cleaning up its garbage." Mark's voice came from the pony radio, "You must know that raising a rover of your own is a heavy responsibility."

Dragonfly stopped and looked at Mark with confusion. "What are you talking about?" She was confused, "You humans are so weird."

[14:14] JPL: Venkat here. Mark and Dragonfly, congratulations on your miracle. The Pathfinder team has begun writing software to be installed on both rovers, so that either one can take over control of the Sojourner from Pathfinder. In this way, even if the Pathfinder breaks down, you will at least have a rover that can enter a narrow area to investigate the situation, and the Pathfinder dialogue will not conflict with the Sojourner and can run at the same time.

[14:39] Watney: Thanks, but we can’t take credit for that. We don’t know what happened, but it burned out some of the electrical connections inside the Sojourner, perfectly avoiding the CPU and PROM chips—this is the fundamental reason why this little robot can survive. If there was anything to be thankful for, it would be the mysterious force that prevented lightning from scorching the brains of sojourners.

And we don’t think this robot has much use now except as a pet. Restoring Sojourner is just to boost morale; it wouldn't make much difference if we were asked to carve Martian rocks to relieve our boredom. Having said that, this is really possible. It can be arranged after Tingting finishes writing her forbidden love fanfic about BJ McKay and Enos Straite.

[14:42] Watney: Here’s the thing—I can’t understand what Mark is saying, and he won’t tell me what “fanfiction” means. Can't find it in the dictionary either. Aren't you his boss? Hurry up and ask him to tell me what he means!

[15:07] JPL: Call him? It's been so long, don't you still know his temper?

[15:34] Watney: All joking aside, our Sojourner fix raises two questions. The Sojourner's circuit board was damaged due to an issue with electrical grounding and temperature shrinkage of the material. Why wasn't the Pathfinder affected by the same problem? Or if it does have the same problem but is still functioning properly, how long will it take before it fails? After thinking about it, I think you should worry about this matter. After all, if you break any parts while disassembling and inspecting them, it can be repaired in a few minutes at most; if I accidentally drop the Pathfinder while trying to maintain it, Once it's broken down, we'll have to rely on pony radios to send Morse code to communicate.

[16:02] JPL: Thanks for bringing this up. We have had similar concerns before, but ultimately came to the same conclusion as you. Accidentally damaging your Pathfinder while attempting maintenance is an avoidable disaster. We'll have the Pathfinder team look into the situation, but that will have to wait until Sojourner's new software is uploaded. We've already begun discussing the various additional scientific data that can be collected with a small rover, and if it lasts long enough, it can explore both Asidaria and Schiaparelli. But first we have to rely on Pathfinder to finish the software update, which will take several days with our current bandwidth.

[16:27] Watney: Got it. Right now our focus is on digging potatoes, and then we have to focus on arranging engine testing. Later we will start to dismantle the No. rover.