"Haha, Doctor, your health is the biggest good news for me!" Tang Feng took the old man's arm and asked the old expert with great merit to sit down first, and then Tang Feng and Benjamin sat down on either side of Dr. Schmitz.

Tang Feng and Benjamin's actions undoubtedly made Dr. Schmitz's mood better, and the old man said with a smile: "Tyrant, I want to tell you a few good news today, of course, a few of the good news happened just a few days ago, but I didn't report to you first, I just want to accumulate this good news, and then report to you together, so I want to ask you two bosses to forgive me for this practice." ”

Tang Feng waved his hand and said, "Dr. Schmitz, I once said to you when you joined us, you are the greatest in our place, and everything must be based on your wishes. I've said this before, and I still say it, so you don't have to worry about such trivial things. Let's tell us a little bit of good news, Benjamin and I can't wait. ”

Dr. Schmitz nodded with a smile and said: "First of all, the good news is that the ion thruster we have cooperated with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory has made a great breakthrough, the 'Starry Sky' ion thruster we funded and developed has a diameter of more than 900 mm, and the total weight is only 260 kilograms, of which the core weight of the engine is only 22 kilograms!" If such a large-diameter ion thruster is used, this new ion thruster will increase the speed of the spacecraft in space more than three times faster in the same amount of time than previous spacecraft that used ion thrusters! ”

Tang Feng was happy when he heard this, which was really good news.

Although Tang Feng formed this star exploration company only to cover up another plan, if he can really make a technological breakthrough, Tang Feng does not mind continuing to develop this company.

At present, Star Exploration Company needs to wait for a breakthrough in many technologies, one is the reuse technology of the first-stage core rocket of the launch vehicle. One is the research and development of plasma thrusters, of course, there are other technologies that need to be broken through, but they are not as urgent as the current two technologies.

Ion thrusters, also known as ion engines, are a type of space electric propulsion technology. The principle is to ionize the gaseous working fluid first. Under the action of a strong electric field, the ions are ejected at an accelerated pace, and the satellite is pushed to carry out attitude adjustment or orbit transfer tasks through reaction force. The ion thruster has the characteristics of high specific impulse, high efficiency and small thrust. Compared with the traditional chemical propulsion method, the ion thruster requires a small working fluid mass and high system reliability, and is a space propulsion technology that has entered practical use.

However, for the time being, although the ion engine is more efficient than the chemical propulsion method, due to the technical limitation that the engine diameter cannot be enlarged, this ion engine can only be applied to some small spacecraft, and cannot be more helpful for too large spacecraft.

Current global research on ion thrusters. At the forefront is undoubtedly the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. And Neo. Dr. Schmitz came out of this laboratory, so this collaboration with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory was led by Dr. Schmitz.

If you want to talk about this jet propulsion laboratory, it's a big name. This laboratory, which is administratively under the dual jurisdiction of the California Institute of Technology and NASA, is definitely a national treasure laboratory in the United States, and it is also a state-level secret institution in the United States.

The laboratory was founded in 1936 and was quite legendary when it was founded. It is said that back then, the famous Theodore. Feng. Carmen is a professor at the California Institute of Technology. Later people said that this jet propulsion laboratory was developed by von . Professor Carmen formed it, but it wasn't.

Then. Feng. One of Carmen's students, Polish's Marina, and two other rocket enthusiasts, Parsons and Foreman, wanted to test liquid rockets, and during a rocket fuel test, they burned down their dormitory, and Caltech administrators were in a hurry. However, due to Feng. Professor Carmen's face, the academy administrators did not expel the three students. Instead, they were asked to change the location of the test, so the famous Jet Propulsion Laboratory was moved from a dormitory building at the California Institute of Technology to a farm outside Los Angeles.

In those days, the periphery of Los Angeles did not yet have the satellite cities of Pasadena and LaCanadaFlintridge. Nestled between what is now Pasadena and LaCanadaFlintridge, the farm has grown over the course of 80 years as a small farm that has now become a jet propulsion laboratory.

It is worth mentioning that when Marina, Parsons, and Foreman moved the laboratory to the farm, Qian Xuesen, a famous Chinese scientist who studied at the California Institute of Technology at the time, also joined in. Later, von. Professor Carmen gave the laboratory great help, so when people in later generations mentioned the jet propulsion laboratory, they all said that von . Professor Carmen is the creator of this lab, which is not the case.

But in any case, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the United States has now become the world's most famous authoritative space laboratory, from the United States intercontinental missiles to the Apollo program, to the space shuttle, and now to Mars, Ceres, Jupiter and the outer space exploration program beyond the solar system, all of which are inseparable from the technical support of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

At a time when traditional chemical propulsion had reached a bottleneck, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory re-picked up the ion thrusters, which had been developed since 1960, in an attempt to rejuvenate a technology that had been around for nearly six decades. And the Jet Propulsion Laboratory is clearly doing a good job of this, and they are once again at the forefront of the world.

In 1998, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the United States launched a Deep Space 1 probe to test advanced flight technology. The detector is powered by an ion thruster with a diameter of 304 mm, and the total weight of the detector is 486.3 kg, including 373.7 kg of detector dry weight, 31.1 kg of hydrazine propellant, and 81.5 kg of xenon for ion propulsion. The probe completed its 20-month mission on December 18, 2001, and has successfully provided a variety of useful data for a new generation of ion thrusters.

The successful experiment of Deep Space 1 has allowed the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to obtain a large amount of valuable data, and a new round of ion thruster research and development has also been put on the table. If this technology can achieve a breakthrough, it will provide the most powerful power support for future space exploration. (To be continued.) )