problems. The weather at the Cape is clear with warm temperatures. Conditions couldn't be better.”
“Is there any spending limit to this rescue operation?” another reporter asked. “Some people are beginning to ask how much is too much.”
“It's not about the bottom line,” Annie said, prepared for the question. “It's about a human life in immediate danger. But if you want to look at it financially, consider the value of Mark Watney's extended mission. His prolonged mission and fight for survival is giving us more knowledge about Mars than the rest of the Ares program combined.”
“Do you believe in God, Venkat?” Mitch asked.
“Sure, lots of 'em,” Venkat said. “I'm Hindu.”
“Ask 'em all for help with this launch.”
“Will do.”
Mitch stepped forward to his station in the large control room. He glanced at the many screens on the far wall, and the dozens of people at their stations.
He put his headset on and said. “This is the Flight Director. Begin Launch Status Check.”
“Roger that, Houston,” came the reply from the Launch Control Director in Florida. “CLCDR checking all stations are manned and systems ready,” he broadcast, “Give me a go/no-go for launch. Talker?”
“Go.” came the response.
“Timer.”
“Go,” Came another voice.
“QAM1.”
“Go.”
Resting his chin on his hands, Mitch stared at the center screen. It showed the Pad video feed. The booster, amid cloudy water vapor from the cooling process, still had EagleEye3 stenciled on the side.
“QAM2.”
“Go.”
“QAM3.”
“Go.”
Venkat leaned against the back wall. An administrator, his job was done. He could only watch and hope. His gaze fixated on the far wall's displays. In his mind he saw the numbers, the shift juggling, the outright lies and borderline crimes he'd committed to put this mission together. It would all be worthwhile if it worked.
“FSC.”
“Go.”
“Prop 1.”
“Go.”
Teddy sat in the VIP observation room behind mission control. His authority afforded him the very best seat: front-row center. His briefcase lay at his feet and he held a blue folder in his hands.
“Prop 2.”
“Go.”
“PTO.”
“Go.”
Annie Montrose paced in her private office next to the press room. Nine televisions mounted to the wall were each tuned to a different network; each network showed the launch pad. A glance at her computer showed foreign networks doing the same. The world was holding its breath.
“ACC.”
“Go.”
“LWO.”
“Go.”
Bruce Ng sat in the JPL cafeteria along with hundreds of engineers who had given everything they had to Iris. They watched the large TV with rapt attention. It was 6:13am in Pasadena, yet every single employee was present.
“AFLC.”
“Go.”
“Guidance.”
“Go.”
Millions of kilometers away, the crew of Hermes listened as they crowded around Johanssen's station. The 2-minute transmission time didn't matter. They had no way to help; there was no need to interact. Johanssen stared intently at her screen, which displayed only the audio signal strength. Beck wrung his hands. Vogel stood motionless, his eyes fixed on the floor. Martinez prayed silently at first, then saw no reason to hide it. Commander Lewis stood apart, her arms folded across her chest.
“PTC.”
“Go.”
“Launch Vehicle Director.”
“Go.”
“Houston, this is Launch Control, we are go for launch.”
“Roger,” Mitch said checking the countdown. “This is Flight, we are go for launch on schedule.”
“Roger that Houston,” Launch Control said, “Launch on schedule.”
Once the clock reached -00:00:15, the television networks got what they were waiting for. The Timer Controller began the verbal countdown. “15,” She said. “14... 13... 12... 11...”
Thousands had gathered at Cape Canaveral; the largest crowd ever to watch an unmanned launch. They listened to the Timer Controller's voice as it echoed across the grandstands.
“10... 9... 8... 7...”
Rich Purnell, entrenched in his orbital calculations, had lost track of time. He didn't notice when his coworkers migrated to the large meeting room where a TV had been set up. In the back of his mind, he thought the office was unusually quiet, but he gave it no further thought.
“6... 5... 4...”
“Ignition sequence start.”
“3... 2... 1...”
Clamps released; the booster rose amid a plume of smoke and fire, slowly at first, then racing ever faster. The assembled crowd cheered it on its way.
“...and liftoff of the Iris Supply Probe,” the Timer Controller said.
As the booster soared, Mitch had no time to watch the spectacle on the main screen. “Trim?” He called out.
“Trim's good, Flight.” came the immediate response.
“Course?” He asked.
“On course.”
“Altitude 1000 meters,” someone said.
“We've reached safe-abort,” another person called out, indicating that the ship could crash harmlessly into the Atlantic Ocean if necessary.
“Altitude 1500 meters.”
“Pitch and roll maneuver commencing.”
“Getting a little shimmy, flight.”
Mitch looked over to the Ascent Flight Director. “Say again?”
“A slight shimmy. On-board guidance is handling it.”
“Keep an eye on it,” Mitch said.
“Altitude 2500 meters.”
“Pitch and roll complete, 22 seconds till staging.”
The quick yet thorough design of Iris accounted for catastrophic landing failure. Rather than normal meal kits, most of the food was cubed protein bar material. Even if Iris failed to deploy its tumble balloons and impacted at hundreds of kph, the protein cubes would still be edible.
An unmanned mission, there was no cap on acceleration. The contents of the probe endured forces no human could survive. While NASA had tested the effects of extreme G-forces on protein cubes, they had not done so with a simultaneous lateral vibration. Had they been given more time, they would have.
The harmless shimmy, caused by a minor fuel mixture imbalance, rattled the payload. Mounted by strong bolts, Iris held firm. The protein cubes inside did not.
The thrust compressed the food while the shimmy rattled it. An effect similar to liquefaction during an earthquake transformed the protein cubes into a thick sludge. Stored in a compartment that originally had no left-over space, the now-compressed substance had room to slosh.
The shimmy also caused an imbalanced load, forcing the sludge toward the edge of its compartment. The shift in weight only aggravated the problem and the shimmy grew stronger.
“Shimmy's getting violent,” reported the Ascent Flight Director.
“How violent?” Mitch said.
“More than we like,” he said. “But the accelerometers caught it and calculated the new center of mass. The guidance computer is adjusting the engines' thrusts to counteract. We're still good.”
“Keep me posted,” Mitch said.
“13 seconds till staging.”
The unexpected weight shift had not spelled disaster. All systems were designed for worst-case scenarios; each did their job admirably. The ship continued toward orbit with only a minor course adjustment, implemented automatically by sophisticated software.
The first stage depleted its fuel, and the booster coasted for a fraction of a second as it jettisoned stage-clamps via explosive bolts. The now-empty stage fell away from the craft as the second-stage engines prepared to ignite.
The brutal forces had disappeared. The protein sludge floated free
in the container. Given two seconds, it would have re-expanded and solidified. But it was given only a quarter-second.
As the second stage fired, the craft experienced a sudden jolt of immense force. No longer contending with the dead-weight of the first stage, the acceleration was profound. The 300kg of sludge slammed in to the back of its container. The point of impact was at the edge of Iris, nowhere near where the mass was expected to be.
Though Iris was held in place by five large bolts, the force was directed entirely to a single one. The bolt was designed to withstand immense forces; if necessary to carry the entire weight of the payload. But it was not designed to sustain a sudden impact from a loose 300kg mass.
The bolt sheared. The burden was then shifted to the remaining four bolts. The forceful impact having passed, their work was considerably easier than that of their fallen comrade.
Had the pad crew been given time to do normal inspections, they would have noticed the minor defect in one of the bolts. A defect that slightly weakened it, though would not cause failure on a normal mission. Still, they would have swapped it out with a perfect replacement.
The off-center load presented unequal force to the four remaining bolts, the defective one bearing the brunt of it. Soon, it failed as well. From there, the other three failed in rapid succession.
Iris slipped from its supports in the payload bulb, slamming in to the hull.
“Woah!” exclaimed the Ascent Flight Director. “Flight, we're getting a large precession!”
“What?” Mitch said as alerts beeped and lights flashed across all the consoles.
“Force on Iris is at 7 G's,” someone said.
“Intermittent signal loss,” came another voice.
“Ascent, What's happening here?” Mitch demanded.
“All hell broke loose. It's spinning on the long axis with a 17 degree precession.”
“How bad?”
“At least 5 rps, and falling off course.”
“Can you get it to orbit?”
“I can't talk to it at all; signal failures left and right.”
“Comm!” Mitch shot to the Communications Director.
“Workin' on it, Flight,” came the response. “There's a problem with the onboard system.”
“Getting some major G's inside, Flight.”
“Ground telemetry shows it 200 meters low of target path.”
“We've lost readings on the probe, Flight.”
Mitch zeroed in on that last comment. “Entirely lost the probe?” Mitch asked.
“Affirm, Flight. Intermittent signal from the ship, but no probe.”
“Shit,” Mitch said. “It shook loose in the bay.”
“It's dradeling, Flight.”
“Can it limp to orbit?” Mitch said. “Even super-low EO? We might be able to-”
“Loss of signal, Flight.”
“LOS here, too.”
“Same here.”
Other than the alarms, the room fell silent.
After a moment, Mitch said “Reestablish?”
“No luck,” said Comm.
“Ground?” Mitch asked.
“GC,” same the reply, “Vehicle had already left visual range.”
“SatCon?” Mitch asked.
“No satellite acquisition of signal.”
Mitch looked forward to the main screen. It was black now, with large white letters reading “LOS”.
“Flight,” came a voice over the radio, “US Destroyer Stockton reports debris falling from the sky. Source matches last known location of Iris.”
Mitch put his head in his hands. “Roger,” he said.
Then he uttered the words every Flight Director hopes never to say: “GC, Flight. Lock the doors.”
It was the signal to start post-failure procedures.
From the VIP observation room, Teddy watched the despondent Mission Control Center. He took a deep breath, then let it out. He looked forlornly at the blue folder, which contained the cheerful speech praising a perfect launch. Placing it in his briefcase, he then extracted the red folder with the other speech in it.
Venkat sat in his darkened office. He never decided to be in the dark. He'd just been lost in thought so long it got dark around him.
His mobile rang. His wife again. No doubt worried about him. He let it go to voice mail. He just couldn't face her. Or anyone.
A brief chime came from his computer. Glancing over, he saw an email from JPL. A relayed message from Pathfinder:
[16:03]WATNEY: How'd the launch go?
Chapter 16
Martinez:
Dr. Shields says I need to write personal messages to each of the crew. She says it'll keep me tethered to humanity. I think it's bullshit. But hey, it's an order.
With you, I can be blunt:
If I die, I need you to check on my parents. They'll want to hear about our time on Mars first-hand. I'll need you to do that.
It won't be easy talking to a couple about their dead son. It's a lot to ask; that's why I'm asking you. I'd tell you you're my best friend and stuff, but it would be gay.
I'm not giving up. Just planning for every outcome. It's what I do.
Guo Ming, Director of the China National Space Administration, examined the expansive paperwork at his desk. In the old days, when China wanted to launch a rocket, they just launched it. Now, they were compelled by international agreements to warn other nations first.
It was a requirement, Guo Ming noted to himself, that did not apply to the United States. To be fair, the Americans publicly announced their launch schedules well in advance, so it amounted to the same.
He walked a fine line filling out the form: Making the launch date and flight path clear, while doing everything possible to “conceal state secrets.”
He snorted at the last requirement. “Ridiculous,” he mumbled. The Taiyang Shen had no strategic or military value. It was an unmanned probe that would be in Earth orbit less than two days. After that, it would travel to a solar orbit between Mercury and Venus. It would be China's first heliology probe to orbit the sun.
Yet, the State Council insisted all launches be shrouded in secrecy. Even launches with nothing to hide. This way, other nations could not infer from lack of openness which launches contained classified payloads.
A knock at the door interrupted his paperwork.
“Come,” Guo Ming said, happy for the interruption.
“Good evening, Sir,” said Under-Director Zhu Tao.
“Tao, welcome back.”
“Thank you, Sir. It's good to be back in Beijing.”
“How were things at Jiuquan?” asked Guo Ming. “Not too cold, I hope? I'll never understand why our launch complex is in the middle of the Gobi Desert.”
“It was cold, yet manageable,” Zhu Tao said.
“And how are launch preparations coming along?”
“I am happy to report they are all on-schedule.”
“Excellent,” Guo Ming smiled.
Zhu Tao sat quietly, staring at his boss.
Guo Ming looked expectantly back at him, but Zhu Tao neither stood to leave nor said anything further.
“Something else, Tao?” Guo Ming asked.
“Mmm,” Zhu Tao said, “Of course, you've heard about the Iris probe?”
“Yes, I did,” Guo frowned. “Terrible situation. That poor man's going to starve.”
“Possibly,” Zhu Tao said. “Possibly not.”