At 5:16 a.m. local time on May 23, 2020, with the order of the ground commander of the Princess Belle Island Space Center, the huge "Starry Sky III" heavy-lift carrier rocket was successfully ignited and lifted off, carrying Tang Feng and other six astronauts, and flew directly beyond the atmosphere.

This launch mission is the 35th launch of the "Starry" series of heavy-lift carrier rockets and the fourth launch mission of the "Starry Sky-3" carrier rocket.

The launch vehicles of the "Starfield" family are named according to the order in which they are launched. For example, the first experimental launch in 2016 was completed by the "Starsky-1" heavy-lift launch vehicle, and the "Starsky-1" was also launched a total of 17 times, but at the time of the seventeenth recovery, it disintegrated in the air due to material problems.

As a meritorious launch vehicle, the "Star-1" was permanently retained by Dr. Schmitz's team. After the "Starry Sky 1" heavy launch vehicle, the launch vehicles used were named according to the sequence "No. 2" and "No. 3".

After fifteen launches, the Star-2 carrier rocket was honorably retired. As the only heavy-lift launch vehicle in the world that has been launched more than 15 times in a row and has been preserved intact, the Star-2 heavy-lift launch vehicle has been permanently retained at the Apollo-Saturn 5 Center at the Kennedy Space Center, along with the rebuilt Saturn 5 launch vehicle, for visitors to the Kennedy Space Center to see.

Now carrying out the construction of the Mars spacecraft is the third rocket of the "Starry" series of heavy-lift launch vehicles, which is named "Starry Sky III" in sequence.

However, the first three launches of this rocket were completed at the Kennedy Space Center, and the recovery was also recovered in the United States. When Tang Feng decided to carry out the third moon landing operation of the "Star Exploration Company", this meritorious rocket was dismantled and transported to the Princess Belle Island Space Center that had just been built on a huge ship.

Now that the space center has been built, it would be too much to say that the launch pad of the Kennedy Space Center will be used. Even though the "Star Exploration Company" and NASA still have a launch contract, under Tang Feng's tough attitude, the "Star Exploration Company" still paid NASA a liquidated damages, which made the launch mission of the "Star 3" heavy-lift carrier rocket at the Princess Belle Island Space Center a reality.

The reason why Tang took great pains to take Princess Belle Island at the beginning was to build a bridgehead that leads the world's scientific and technological leaders in various industries, and now other projects have not yet been carried out or have just had a clue, but the space program is the top priority in Tang's plan, so Tang Feng will not hesitate to pay liquidated damages to pull the "Star No. 3" to the Princess Belle Island Space Center to carry out the launch mission.

Moreover, this launch mission is also the third moon landing operation of the "Star Exploration Company", which will naturally attract global attention. This moon landing was preceded by a moon landing in January 2019. The moon landing was a relaunch of the first mission to make up for the premature completion of the first mission, and in addition to conducting a scientific expedition to the moon for more than six days, it was more important to test the capabilities of the "semi-finished" Mars spacecraft with ten functional chambers.

When the moon landed for the first time, the lunar spacecraft only had three functional compartments plus a "Eagle Falcon" landing spacecraft, and that operation was purely Tang Feng's plan to find a suitable reason for the star core split to appear in front of the world. So that operation ended quickly, and some of the planned tests didn't even have time to be implemented.

As the main funder of the entire series of plans, Tang Feng is of course going to hold a second moon landing operation. In fact, this second lunar landing is the actual testing process of the Martian spacecraft as originally planned. It's just that this secret is not known to anyone except Tang Feng himself.

The second moon landing was carried out under the leadership of an astronaut from the Star Exploration Company, with Du Yun from China, an astronaut from the United States, and one astronaut from Russia, France, and the United Kingdom each becoming the executive personnel of the mission.

The reason why each of the five permanent members of the United Nations has an astronaut is also Tang Feng's entanglement in order to balance the interests. The moon landing was a global watch, and only the Americans, two Chinese, and one Russian had ever landed on the moon before, and no astronauts from other countries had ever been on the moon at all.

Therefore, when implementing the second moon landing operation, Tang Feng used such a plan to equalize interests, so that the five permanent members of the Security Council were more satisfied.

As for the third moon landing, it is still a major United Nations operation. Except for Tang Feng, all the other lunar landers were astronauts from the five permanent members of the United Nations.

The moon landing was no longer planned. According to the plan developed by Dr. Schmitz, only two lunar landings will be carried out before the construction of the Mars spacecraft, mainly to test the functions of the Martian spacecraft. And this moon landing operation was purely carried out by Tang Feng for the upgrade of the star core.

At first, Dr. Schmitz did not agree with the moon landing operation, but at Tang Feng's insistence, Dr. Schmitz and his team had to spend nearly two months to make a plan for this moon landing operation.

Since May 18, 2017, Tang Feng led five astronauts to carry out the first moon landing operation of the "Star Exploration Company", to today, three years have passed, and the Mars spacecraft has been built since June 2016 when the "Star One" heavy carrier rocket carried out the second launch mission, and it has lasted for nearly four years.

In fact, the overall construction task of the Martian spacecraft floating in the geosynchronous transfer orbit has been completed, and the sixteen functional cabins plus the wheel cabin have been installed, and now the Martian spacecraft is short of various supplies.

It's just that landing on the moon and landing on Mars are two completely different things, not to mention anything else, just the number of supplies, landing on Mars will be N times more than landing on the moon.

If the supply required to land on Mars is 100, then the supply required to land on the moon cannot even reach 1. There is no way, a round trip from the moon, if it is fast, it will be completed in more than ten days. But if you want to make a round trip from Mars, the time it takes can be calculated in months or even years

Therefore, after Tang Feng set the third moon landing operation, the "Star No. 3" heavy-lift carrier rocket only carried out a launch mission in mid-April, sending enough supplies to the Mars spacecraft to support this moon landing operation.

Therefore, this moon landing operation is a real test of the Martian spacecraft that has been built by the main body. (To be continued.) )