9
Mission Day 34
Velocity 320,485 m/s (716,904 mph)
Acceleration 0.0 m/s2 (0g)
After a year of being sped along by its electric VASIMR engines, the cargo carrier Cygnus had reached Jupiter’s sphere of influence and matched Magellan’s velocity as both ships hurtled toward the gas giant. Once Magellan had captured the ship with its cargo modules and propellant tanks, they would be clear to follow its course around and behind the planet with a hard burn at closest approach for a dramatic increase in velocity.
Still half a day ahead, Cygnus careened ahead of Magellan along its own hyperbolic orbit. Fast enough to be free of the Sun’s influence, it was still not fast enough to prevent its path from being shaped by gravity. The Sun and Jupiter battled for dominance, the gas giant winning out thanks to its proximity.
Gravity was not the only force that made Jupiter so formidable. The planet’s core of molten hydrogen was in constant motion, rotating about its axis to generate an immense electromagnetic field that channeled charged particles from the solar wind into invisible belts of radiation powerful enough to kill an unprotected human in minutes. Even when protected, the less time spent within the Jovian belts the better. And that was how they’d planned Magellan’s trajectory since no humans had yet traversed it.
This was a dangerous environment for machines as well, particularly the kind of fragile silicon-based electrically powered contraptions flung by humans into deep space. Already hardened against the harsh electromagnetic environment, flying anywhere near Jupiter demanded an extra measure of protection.
It was impossible to protect against everything, which became most apparent when designers needed to trim mass. Encase the vehicle in enough dense metals like lead and it’d be fine, it just would be too heavy to send anywhere. Thus a few millimeters of aluminum and Mylar foil was all that stood between Cygnus’ electronic brain and the radioactive hell of Jupiter’s magnetosphere. This would have been more than enough, had an unusually energetic Sun not charged up the field to a precarious degree.
While unwelcome, it wasn’t unexpected either. It was for this very reason that Cygnus’ computer brain was programmed with enough common sense to know when it needed to take extraordinary measures to protect itself. And so the massive spike in EM radiation Cygnus detected as it crossed Jupiter’s magnetopause led it to tuck its electronic tail and hide.
In spaceflight parlance this was called “Safe Mode,” wherein the ship shut down and cut itself off from outside influence lest another surge confuse the computers enough to order it into some self-destructive behavior.
To protect itself, Cygnus went dark. Its small reactor only spared enough current to keep core memory from vanishing and to power its rendezvous beacons. This also meant keeping its attitude and guidance routines shut down: Star trackers, control jets and orientation gyros were cut off to protect the craft from becoming hopelessly disoriented.
This meant Jupiter’s gravity was able to fully assert itself, pulling on Cygnus undeterred by the spacecraft’s stabilizing flywheels. Almost the length of a football field, the stack of cargo modules and propellant tanks was drawn into a tumble as it fought a natural tendency to align itself with the gravity gradient. Imperceptible at first, it began increasing with each revolution.
It took an hour for this information to make it back to Cygnus’ controllers in Pasadena’s Jet Propulsion Lab. By the time JPL finished their diagnostics and attempted reboots, it was another hour before they sounded the alarm in Houston. It would be another hour before this information could be relayed to Magellan.
♦ ♦ ♦
Cygnus had been a blip on their radar long before it showed up in their windows. The cargo ship shone in the distance, its strobe beacon distinguishing it from the other bodies orbiting Jupiter. “Thar she blows,” Jack called out from the control deck. “Does that mean I win the pot?”
“Didn’t know we were taking bets,” Traci said over her shoulder, watching their rendezvous from the copilot’s station.
“You remember: First one to get eyeballs on it wins everybody else’s coffee ration for the month. I’m pretty sure we were all in on it.”
“Nice try,” she snorted. “Wouldn’t have anything to do with yours being used up?”
“Pure coincidence. More evidence of the perfect symmetry of the universe. You don’t need all that caffeine anyway.”
“Speak for yourself,” Roy grumbled, his mug trailing an aroma of Colombian dark roast as he shuffled past on his way to the command pilot’s station.
“You’re killing me here,” Jack groaned. “What I wouldn’t give for—”
“For what?” Noelle said as she buckled in next to him, pushing over a sealed mug of hot black liquid.
Jack perked up with the first luxurious sip. “Bless you, dear lady.”
“We need everyone in top form, and it wouldn’t do for our flight engineer to be underperforming just because he can’t control his personal habits,” she scolded him. “I’m being practical.”
Even Roy howled at that one as Jack’s shoulders sagged. “Harsh. But true. And seriously, thanks.”
Noelle patted his arm. “Don’t mention it,” she said, then leaned in and whispered. “Besides, that came out of Roy’s rations.”
Owen Harriman had been pacing behind his desk on Manager’s Row for what couldn’t have been more than a few minutes, until the mission clocks caught his eye. He looked back down at his watch in consternation: Had it really been an hour? A quick glance around the control room revealed nothing but the backs of controllers hunched over their consoles. He hoped his new nervous habit would remain unnoticed by the others.
“You must sit,” ordered a gruff voice behind him. Anatoly Rhyzov pulled Owen’s empty chair back from his console.
Owen slumped into it, almost rolling into the credenza behind them. “Sorry. Hard to control my nerves.”
“That is your business, not mine,” Rhyzov said dismissively. He nodded toward the wall screens at the front of the room. “You were blocking my view.”
“Here I thought you were concerned about me.”
Rhyzov waved him away in a “no worries” gesture that Owen had gotten used to seeing. “Everyone copes in own way,” he said, pointing at the GNC desk. “Your guidance controller has been gripping rail beside his console so long his hand is turning purple.”
“That’s why we kept those handles. They used to be for swapping out balky displays in a hurry. Turns out it keeps the flight controllers sane.”
“We did same. Is stressful, this work. Much to watch with little to do.” He tapped his forehead. “All work is up here.”
Owen tapped his stomach in return. “And it’s felt down here.” It was too easy to forget that his Russian mentor had endured his own trials in the hot seat. They would’ve been about the same age, too. What might they be doing in here when he reached Anatoly’s age?
“Our control room was same. Used to directing cosmonauts. Not used to waiting for them.”
“This was easier when everything was working normally,” Owen admitted. The light delay was close to an hour each way and the mental gymnastics threatened to consume him. Everything happening in here had already happened out there. It was maddening for a room full of people conditioned to working under extreme pressure to now feel so impotent. They were being forced to take in data, analyze trends, and predict what might happen in the next hour instead of making snap decisions right now. The farther Magellan traveled, the farther out they’d be forced to predict based on information that was old and growing older each day. The many permutations of possible outcomes forced them to become more reliant on an AI network that mirrored the one aboard ship.
On top of that, the masters of problem solving were dependent on their cohorts at JPL who were right now consumed with trying to recover their tumbling resupply vessel. Normal mission rules would demand a wave-off, aborting the rendezvous and defaulting to “Plan B” using Jupiter’s gravity to bend their trajectory back toward Earth.
In reality that would’ve been “Plan A” on any other mission, but a normal mission also wouldn’t have light delays of over an hour in each direction. By the time word reached Magellan, chances were good the crew was seeing it for themselves and taking matters into their own hands.
“It’s like we’re team owners at a horse race,” Owen complained. “We’ve put everything we have into our prize steed, and now we have to stand back and find out if the trainer and jockey actually know what they’re doing.”
“You are much too hard on yourself,” Rhyzov said with a knowing look. “You have even less control than that.”
Owen was afraid to ask. “What do you mean by that?”
“Racetrack is also made by man. Natural materials but still groomed by man. Space is raw nature. Untamed and untamable. Has its own rules and does not give up its secrets easily.”
“And all that fancy math we depend on?”
“Gets your horse onto track. Does not guarantee it will win. Or finish.”
Owen wanted to sink into his chair when he noticed Flight glaring at them. “Gentlemen, we have a problem to work here and you’re becoming a distraction to my flight controllers. Please take the philosophical discussions outside.”
Roy’s crew would either figure it out, or they wouldn’t. Meanwhile, the team in Houston was getting their first hard lesson at being interested spectators.
With no time to leave his station for the telescope down on the workshop deck, Roy strained to tease out more detail from the cameras tracking Cygnus. “Strobes look weird.”
“Weird how?” Traci asked.
“Like they’re out of synch,” Roy said, though it was hard to tell this far out. “Any updates from Houston or JPL?”
“Negative,” Jack said. “We’re about due for one, though.”
Roy frowned and reached for the binoculars he kept in a compartment behind his seat. He turned to Traci. “Has the remote pinged you yet?”
“Negative. Intermittent carrier signal, but we’re also close to max range. Could be magnetic interference.”
Roy loosened his straps and pressed against the window. Jupiter loomed in the distance, days away but still close enough that its glow outshone all but the brightest stars. Well over a dozen kilometers ahead, there was no mistaking the cargo ship’s flashing beacon among the steady lights of Jupiter’s moons hanging in the black. “Lights down, please.”
He kept his eyes closed as Traci killed the cabin lighting, relaxing his vision. When he returned to his perch, he shifted his focus to an empty point in space next to Cygnus. This allowed his eyes to better perceive light and confirmed what he’d come to suspect. “It’s too bright,” he said. “Irregular.”
“It’s not the ship’s beacon,” Traci agreed. “Oh boy.” If it wasn’t the spacecraft’s beacon, that meant it had to be the spacecraft itself. Its metal framework and radiator panels and fuel tanks reflected the sunlight at irregular intervals as the stack tumbled through space.
The warning message arrived from Houston just in time to confirm Roy’s suspicions. His muffled curse put the exclamation point on the brewing trouble. He turned to Traci. “Can you do anything with the remote?”
She tapped a few commands into the controls by her flight station, trying to take over for Cygnus’ now-dormant guidance package. “No joy,” she said sourly. “It’s stuck on stupid.”
Roy pushed back down into his seat and updated his rendezvous cues. At their current rate it would be another hour before they were close enough to see for certain—about the same time it would take to get it in range for the remote. Traci might be able to null its rates to where it was safe enough for Jack to grab with the arm, but bringing them that close to a tumbling spacecraft was unacceptably dangerous.
He scratched at his chin. They could do something, or nothing. And nothing wasn’t acceptable.
“Jack, is Puffy still go on standby?”
He swiped over one of his screens and scrolled down its menu. “Comm is good. So is electrical. Fuel cells running at thirty-percent output, main bus A and B both at twenty-four volts. Controls and life support diagnostics came back nominal. All the important stuff is hibernating on standby.”
“How long to get through the full power-up checklist?”
It took him a second to get past his surprise and pick up on Roy’s question. Was he really going for it? “The big item’s aligning the guidance platform. That’s about twenty minutes with cross-checks. All that’s left is to charge the prop tanks and warm up the thrusters.”
“Do a propellant transfer from our tanks, too. I want full authority in RCS and OMS.”
Traci raised her hand. “Question, boss. Where are we—”
“We’re not going anywhere,” Roy said. He paused to consider his next words. “At least not all of us. You and Noelle have to stay here and keep flying the ship. Jack and I are going after Cygnus.”