3 Trouble in space

Chapter Three TROUBLE IN SPACE "Time to get on with the mission," said Roshni. A space probe needed the Secret Explorers' help. They didn't know what kind of help, but they knew it was urgent. "Where's the probe?" Ollie asked. Roshni peered out into space. "I can't see it. Hey, Beagle, can you scan for the probe?" The Beagle was quiet for a few seconds.

Lights went on and off. Then it beeped a triumphant TA-DAAAH! An image of the probe appeared on the navigation display, as well as directions to reach it. Roshni carefully pointed the Beagle's nose the right way and Ollie fired the rockets. Steadily, the spacecraft changed course.

"Flying a spaceship isn't as easy as it looks in the movies, is it?" Ollie said. "That's because in space, if you set off in one direction, you continue moving that way and don't stop," Roshni explained. "You can't hit the brakes like you would in a car." "So how do you slow down?" "You have to turn on thrusters that fire in the opposite direction, so the movement cancels out," said Roshni. "Got it," said Ollie. He turned to the navigation display. "Looks like we're heading the right way," he said. Next to the image of the probe, a distance counter was ticking down.

Something huge, gray, and round appeared in the distance. Another asteroid? wondered Roshni. No—it's far too big! She quickly nudged the controls to steer them safely past it. As it rushed closer, she could make out craters on the surface. "Hey, that looks like the moon!" Ollie said. "It's a moon, all right," said Roshni. She'd figured out what they were looking at. "That's Ganymede, the biggest of Jupiter's moons." "Is it bigger than our moon?" Roshni laughed. "It's bigger than Mercury!"

"But Mercury's a planet!" Ollie said. "Wow! Seems like everything about Jupiter is king-size." "That makes sense," Roshni said. "Jupiter gets its name from the king of the Roman gods, after all." The Beagle made urgent little BIP-BIP-BIP noises. Roshni noticed that the distance counter was nearly at zero. "We've almost reached the probe!" she said. "We need to slow down now. The Beagle should have retro-rockets somewhere—they fire in the direction a spaceship is flying, which slows it down." "Got them!" Ollie pulled a lever. "Retro-rockets… fired!" he said. Steadily, the Beagle slowed to a complete stop. The probe floated in space in front of them, gleaming in the light from the cockpit.

It looked very tiny against the gigantic planet in the background. Roshni felt a sense of wonder at how far it had come. It's probably been ten years since it blasted off from Earth, she thought. That's how long it takes to fly to Jupiter. And now something had gone wrong. But what could it be?