The old cat froze for a moment, then jumped up.

"I'm crazy, Tang Yue, you're such a madman!"

"Can it be done?"

"I have to calculate, I have to calculate!" The old cat pushed the keyboard and stood up, and it began to pace around the main hall of Kunlun Station, its eyes flickering, and a huge amount of data was tumbling in its brain, and every detail could not be missed.

"The Joint Space Station has no power on its own and cannot change its orbit...... Can't change the orbit ......"

"But we have Orion Two!"

The old cat muttered to himself.

"After a week of orbiting, the difference in orbital altitude between the Eagle spacecraft and the United Space Station will widen to 120 kilometers...... One hundred and twenty kilometers! One hundred and twenty kilometers! "The old cat began to simulate the orbits of the two in his head.

It has a good computer with powerful performance - the reason why it used to use pen and paper to calculate before was because Tang Yue was present, and it had to show Tang Yue the calculation process.

The old cat paced faster and faster, and it got caught up in thinking and calculating, and began to evaluate the feasibility of such a strategy.

The mountains could not go to Muhammad.

But Muhammad could go to the mountains.

Since the Eagle spacecraft can no longer increase the altitude of the orbit, it is better to let the United Space Station lower the altitude! Lower the space station by 120 kilometers to catch the falling lander!

Although the space station itself is not powered, they still have Orion II in their hands, a powerful spacecraft!

As a Earth-fire transfer spacecraft, Orion-2 needs to accelerate from Mars orbit to Hohmann transfer orbit every time it returns to Earth from Mars, so it has plenty of fuel and a lot of power...... If the space station is a floating platform at sea, then Orion-2 is a powerful tugboat!

They can let this powerful tugboat move forward on the pontoon!

Catch the dinghy transporting supplies before it sinks!

"Time."

"When?" Tang Yue asked.

"It's all about time, and when the Eagle spacecraft rejoins the station after a week, the orbital altitude will drop to 280 kilometers, which is the closest it will get to the station, and it's our only chance." "If we miss this point in time, then the height of the lander will continue to drop and we won't be able to reach it." ”

"How long is it until this point in time?"

The old cat glanced at the time.

"Fifty minutes!"

"We're going to reduce the altitude of the space station by 120 kilometers in 50 minutes?"

"Not fifty minutes."

"We can't start slowing down now, because if we don't slow down at the right time, the station will miss the Eagle spacecraft, and the station will have to change orbit at the right time so that its transfer orbit is perfectly tangent to the orbit of the lander." The old cat drew an arc on the table, "When the Eagle spacecraft reaches an altitude of two hundred and eighty kilometers, the space station must pass by exactly that point!" ”

"And how long do we have left?"

"Countdown to 1,320 seconds! Twenty-two minutes later, the deceleration began! The old cat replied.

Twenty-two minutes later, when the deceleration began, they would have only twenty-eight minutes left to change orbit, and they would have to reduce the altitude by 120 kilometers in twenty-eight minutes.

Probably never before in the history of mankind has there been such a violent orbit change, and it was literally a flight down - they were going to make the space station fall faster than the Eagle spacecraft, and catch the lander before it fell into hell!

The old cat quickly calculated the thrust of the engine on Orion 2, the propellant balance of Orion 2, the mass of Orion 2 and the United Space Station, the trajectory of the Eagle spacecraft, the propellant balance of the lander, the precise time of the meeting between the two, and the dense huge data flowed through the old cat's brain.

"The Eagle spacecraft has less than twenty percent propellant balance."

"After one round of orbiting, the relative velocity is 120 meters per second, the axial roll angular velocity is 15 degrees per second, and the thrust reverser rocket can reduce the speed to a maximum of 6 meters per second!"

"Safe docking is no longer possible, docking is no longer possible......"

"But we can catch it!"

The old cat's eyes widened, it was surprised by its own bold idea, there had never been such a risky space program in the history of mankind, and to be honest, it was not a plan at all, but a crazy attempt, betting on everything, desperately.

The old cat stopped, it stood in the main hall of Kunlun Station, opened its eyes, and muttered softly.

"Damn, Tang Yue, you're such a genius."

·

·

·

"Miss Mai Dong! Listen, go to Orion II right now! The old cat's voice sounded in the headphones, "Go now!" ”

Mai Dong was taken aback and immediately did so.

Putting on her white cabin suit, she kicked her feet lightly on the bulkhead, turned and left the core module, and then sped through the section and interface.

On the other side of the station, the Orion-2 spacecraft is connected to the Silence multipurpose module, which is the dedicated dock for the Orion spacecraft, where the two Orion spacecraft are usually docked.

But now Orion One is gone, and only Spacecraft Two is left on the space station.

Mai Dong walked through the narrow Silence cabin, and through the porthole, she could already see the huge hull of the ship outside the window.

The Orion-2 spacecraft is also a truss-like structure, with crew compartments, solar panels, propellant storage tanks, and engines all mounted around metal trusses, and looks thin and long, larger than the United Space Station.

After all, this spacecraft also has to support the survival and activities of an entire scientific expedition team, and it also has a powerful power system, with a huge propellant storage tank and rocket engine.

When normally docking, the Orion spacecraft and the Martian space station form a joint space station.

This is where the word "united" in the name of this space station comes from.

Nothing to do with the UN.

Mai Dong struggled to open the heavy hatch and burrowed into the passage, panting, "Mr. Cat, I'm in!" ”

"Go to the command module!" The old cat said.

Five minutes later.

"Mr. Cat, Mr. Cat...... I'm in the command pod! ”

"Okay, Miss Mai Dong, listen to me, now I need you to manually control this ship! Do you see what I mean? I need you to manually steer this ship! The old cat said word by word.

The girl was startled, she looked around, and her eyes were full of dense complex buttons, which made people dizzy.

"Manual manipulation? I'm not learning......"

"Don't worry." The old cat sat at the workbench, "I haven't studied either." ”

"That'...... What to do? ”

"What should I do?" The old cat gritted its teeth and grinned, and it opened the operation and maintenance manual in its hand as thick as a dictionary, "Learn now." ”