The manned spacecraft Ares 3 successfully arrives on Mars, but an extremely destructive storm hits the astronauts, forcing Ares 3 to interrupt its mission and return home. During the evacuation, astronaut Mark Watney is hit by a blown-off part of the spacecraft. With little hope of survival, his teammates have to rush back and announce to the world that he has died. Surprisingly, Mark has a very low probability of surviving. He went into hiding at the space base on Mars to recover from his wounds. The next mission to Mars was not until four years later, and the base only had enough supplies to last him 31 days.
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