Dr. Schmitz, who is more than 300,000 kilometers away at the ground control center of the Princess Belle Island Space Center, was also a little helpless about this result.

At present, the thrust of the ion thruster developed by human beings is very weak, and the 300 mm caliber thruster used on the "Deep Space 1" probe can only push a 32K piece of paper on the earth with vacuum thrust. Although the thrust of the new ion thruster used on the Mars spacecraft is hundreds of times greater than that of the thruster used by the "Deep Space 1" probe, its thrust is still quite weak.

Therefore, the spacecraft using this ion thruster needs to accelerate for a long time and long distance before the speed of the spacecraft can be increased to a predetermined speed. Just like the Mars spacecraft, the three ion thrusters on it need at least four or five days and millions of kilometers to accelerate the Mars spacecraft with a dry weight of more than 600 tons and a full load of more than 1,000 tons to a predetermined speed.

From the Earth to the Moon, it is only 375,000 kilometers, which is simply not enough for these three large ion thrusters to accelerate the Martian spacecraft to a predetermined speed.

However, this test has tested the real vacuum thrust of these three thrusters. According to the performance of these three ion thrusters, it has been calculated that a fully loaded Martian spacecraft, under the propulsion of these three ion thrusters, can increase the speed of the Martian spacecraft by more than 5,000 km/h per day.

In comparison, this 1800 mm caliber ion thruster is countless times more powerful than the 300 mm ion thruster used by "Deep Space 1" back then.

The 300-millimeter-caliber ion thruster used by the "Deep Space 1" probe could only increase the speed of Deep Space 1 by 32 km/h per day, while the little guy could only increase the speed of Deep Space 1 to 9,700 km/h after 300 days of continuous work. It took 20 months for Deep Space 1 to reach a speed of 12,700 km/h.

It's not slow to say that, but in space travel, it's a snail.

Even the 900 mm ion thruster developed by Dr. Schmitz's team a few years ago, although the thrust is only seven times that of the 300 mm ion thruster, is enough to accelerate the Mars spacecraft to a speed of 20,000 km/h in just one and a half months.

As for this new 1,800 mm ion thruster, its thrust is 23 times that of the 900 mm caliber class, and if three of these 1,800 mm ion thrusters are fully activated, it will be enough to increase the speed of the spacecraft to more than 40,000 km/h in one week.

But don't forget, there is also a recoil rocket on board the Martian spacecraft that is designed to accelerate the spacecraft. This type of recoil rocket is made of a chemical-fueled engine and is used in a vacuum.

Although the caliber of this recoil rocket is not large, when used in a vacuum, the effect is absolutely sharp. This recoil rocket consumes about two tons of chemical fuel every time it starts, can be used for about twenty minutes, and can directly accelerate the speed of the Martian spacecraft from zero to more than 20,000 kilometers per hour.

In total, about 30 tons of chemical fuel are stored in the auxiliary fuel reserve compartment of the Martian spacecraft, enough to start the recoil rocket fifteen times, or the falcon landing spacecraft to land on Mars twice.

If the Martian spacecraft departs from the geosynchronous transfer orbit, it will first use the plasma thruster to accelerate, and then use the Earth's gravity to use the "gravitational slingshot" effect caused by the Earth's gravity to let the Mars spacecraft get out of the Earth's gravity, and then start a recoil rocket to continue to accelerate the Mars spacecraft.

When the acceleration of the recoil rocket is completed, the speed of the Mars spacecraft can reach 40,000 km/h, and then continue to accelerate the Mars spacecraft with ion thrusters, then in four days, the speed of the Mars spacecraft will reach 16.7 km/s, which is the third cosmic speed of 60,000 km/h.

As long as the Martian spacecraft can reach the third cosmic velocity, then it can fly directly to Mars. The Martian spacecraft, which flies at the third cosmic speed, has a distance of 56 million kilometers, and it only takes about 50 days to reach the orbit around Mars, including the time spent on acceleration and deceleration.

Therefore, although the third lunar landing did not really test the efficacy of the Mars spacecraft's ion thrusters, it did obtain real vacuum thrust data for this new type of ion thrusters.

The other data calculated from this data must be true and valid.

Of course, most of this test work was done from the ground control center of the Princess Belle Island Space Center, and the seven astronauts on the Mars spacecraft were doing adaptation activities at this time.

Among them, the main acclimatization activity is in the rim cabin.

In the rear half of the spacecraft, there is a rim capsule with a radius of 75 meters. The ring cabin consists of 12 curved living function cabins with a diameter of 4.4 meters and a length of 38 meters. There are 12 alloy channels with a diameter of 1.5 meters between the living function module and the rotor of the main body of the Mars spacecraft, allowing astronauts to pass freely between the main body of the spacecraft and the living function module.

This design of a circular spacecraft with a radius of 75 meters is actually based on the O'Neill cylinder theory, under the rotation speed of the wheel at a speed of 4.22 revolutions per minute, the centrifugal force generated by the rotation of the functional chamber can make the people in the functional chamber obtain about one-third of the earth's gravitational force, although this gravitational force is not enough compared to the earth, but it is enough for the astronauts on the spacecraft to avoid adverse conditions such as bone decalcification and muscle relaxation.

Now, these seven astronauts, including Tang Feng, are doing various adaptation activities in the life function module.

There is no gravitational force in the main body of the Martian spacecraft, so when Tang Feng is active in the main body of the Martian spacecraft, they are all floating. But when they entered the rim through the 1.5-meter-diameter passage, the seven of them were immediately able to stand upright, which was even better than on the moon.

In fact, the gravitational force designed by this ring cabin is similar to that of Mars, which is only more than one-third of the Earth's. Therefore, the activity in the wheel cabin is also to allow astronauts to adapt to the gravitational pull on Mars in advance.

Although the time to fly to the moon is very short, it is enough for Tang Feng and the others to enjoy the gravitational pull on Mars in advance.

The huge Martian spacecraft flew around the moon in orbit around the moon at a fixed speed for more than half a day. After handing over the main control of the spacecraft to the spacecraft's main control computer, the seven people led by Tang Feng took the "Eagle Falcon" landing module and the "Kunpeng" landing module and began to prepare for landing on the moon. (To be continued.) )