Chapter 179 - Sol Three Hundred and Twenty-One, Seven Kilograms of Thrust (1/2)

Tang Yue entered Kunlun Station and took off the life support system. Tomcat was wearing an earpiece hugging its hind feet as it sat on a chair. It was looking free and easy.

When Tang Yue took off the Radiant Armor, he heard Tomcat singing “God is a Girl.”

But when he listened carefully, the lyrics were different.

“God is a cat,

“Wherever you are,

“Do you believe it, can you receive it?”

It was actually singing, “God is a Cat.”

“Miss Mai Dong, take note. You are sixty-six meters from the core module. You are a little too far.” Tomcat glanced at the image on the screen as it gave a warning. “You should start heading back.”

“Mr. Cat.” Mai Dong sounded to be in a bit of a predicament. “I’ve just released the anchor cable, but I can’t reach the handle.”

“OK, don’t panic… I’ll switch on the cable hoist to pull you back,” Tomcat looked up and saw Mai Dong helplessly floating two meters from her working position. She was desperately trying to reach her hand out for a handle on the wall.

Tomcat remotely switched on the power and the safety tether on Mai Dong’s EVA suit tightened as she was pulled back towards the space station. This continued until the girl grabbed onto the maintenance handle on the space station’s outer walls again.

“Miss Mai Dong, hold tight next time.”

Mai Dong nodded and hooked the anchor rope onto the wall.

“What are you doing?” Tang Yue hung up the Radiant Armor as he walked over with a cup of water. “Another repair?”

“The Hall-effect thruster,” Tomcat replied. “It’s a 600 kW Hall-effect thruster, SPT276, that was replaced from the Hayabusa III asteroid probe during the last Mars mission.”

“Hayabusa III?” Tang Yue tried hard to recall. He had heard of that name and it was apparently something from the Japanese. In the past few decades, the Japanese have become rather enamored with making asteroid probes. Each one of them surpassed their predecessor in terms of distance traveled. “It’s an asteroid probe, so shouldn’t it be in the asteroid belt? Why is it in the space station?”

“But it won’t be in the asteroid belt forever. The Hayabusa III probe will pass by the United Space Station in its forty-fourth orbit during its mission. Therefore, the space station’s occupants will do some maintenance on it when that happens,” Tomcat explained. “But that probe’s propulsion device has malfunctioned, so it’s been dismantled and placed in there.”

“Where’s the probe?”

“It flew off,” Tomcat replied. “The probe malfunctioned and delayed the mission, so the probe’s exploration plans were abandoned. Therefore, Mission Control decided to make it a deep-space probe. It was sent out with a gravitational slingshot thanks to Jupiter. By now, it should have already gone past Jupiter’s orbit.”

“Why are you fiddling with it?”

“We’re trying to see if we can fix it,” Tomcat said. “If it can be repaired, the space station’s attitude adjustment won’t require the Orion II’s Raptor rockets. This will maximize the space station’s lifespan. Even if Miss Mai Dong lands, the space station will continue staying in orbit for a very long period of time.”

“You know how to fix that gizmo?” Tang Yue was somewhat puzzled. He pulled a chair over and sat beside Tomcat. “If I recall correctly, a stationary plasma thruster and a chemical rocket’s structure are completely different.”

Tang Yue looked at the schematic on the monitor to the left of Tomcat. The Hayabusa III asteroid probe SPT276 stabilizers and stationary plasma thruster was a cylindrical body with a diameter spanning more than a meter. It resembled a spotlight and it was installed on the space station’s truss. During the last Mars mission, the astronauts had dismantled it from the Hayabusa III and placed it there, perhaps to take it back on the next mission.

“It’s different.” Tomcat shook its head. “It’s slightly bigger. The Hayabusa III probe SPT276 is currently the biggest stationary plasma thruster in service.”

“How big is it?”