The old cat sat in a chair and began to try to make contact with the United Space Station.

Normally, the Kunlun station communicates with the United Space Station through radio waves in the Ka, L or C bands, of which the Ku band is a microwave between 12 and 18 GHz, which is a very mature signal transmission band, and the small pot TV antenna installed on the roof of every household decades ago is the Ka-band.

THE COMMUNICATION SPEED OF THIS CHANNEL IS VERY FAST, EQUIVALENT TO 500MHZ BROADBAND, AND THE SIGNAL OF MAI DONG AND TANG YUE'S USUAL VIDEO CONTACT IS IN THIS BAND.

IN ADDITION, THE L AND C BANDS ARE BACKUPS, THE L-BAND HAS A FREQUENCY BETWEEN 1 AND 2 GHZ, WHICH IS A MILLIMETER WAVE, WHILE THE C-BAND HAS A FREQUENCY BETWEEN 4 AND 8 GHZ, COMPARED TO THE MORE ADVANCED KA-BAND, THESE TWO FREQUENCY BANDS HAVE BEEN IN USE FOR A LONGER TIME, ARE OLDER, AND MORE MATURE, SO AS A BACKUP.

The operation cycle of the joint space station is one hour and twenty minutes, that is, the joint space station circles Mars every hour and twenty minutes, passing over the head of the Kunlun station.

In this more than an hour of operation cycle, half of the time the joint space station is below the horizon, that is, on the other side of Mars, in this case the Kunlun station can not communicate directly with the joint space station, after all, radio waves will not turn, let alone penetrate the entire Mars, so at this time the synchronous orbit relay satellite comes in handy.

The three signal relay satellites are evenly distributed in synchronous orbits at an altitude of 17,000 kilometers from the surface of Mars, except for the polar regions, the signals of these three satellites can cover almost the entire surface of Mars, and when the joint space station is on the other side of Mars, the radio waves emitted by the Kunlun station are transferred in the hands of the relay satellites and then sent to their destinations.

The old cat is wearing a headset and is calling the joint space station.

On the table in front of it was a computer screen with green numbers showing the wind speed.

At this moment, the wind is howling outside Kunlun Station, the atmospheric structure of Mars is very different from that of the Earth, the troposphere at the bottom of the Earth's atmosphere is only seven or eight kilometers high, and the stratosphere is above it, so the violent atmospheric activity is basically limited to below the stratosphere.

The Martian atmosphere does not have such a thing as a stratosphere, and its troposphere is unlimited, so as high as you want to climb, the troposphere height on Mars can even break through an outrageous 60 kilometers.

Therefore, the atmosphere on the surface of Mars is extremely active, and storms can often roll sand and dust up dozens of kilometers into the air, like a thick quilt covering the surface, and human communication equipment has to be blinded in the face of such extreme weather.

"How?" Tang Yue asked, "Can you get in touch?" ”

The old cat took off the headphones and handed them to Tang Yue.

Tang Yue put on the headphones, and he heard a sharp sizzling sound that suddenly rose and fell, like some old witch screaming loudly, very harsh.

"What's that sound?"

"Noise." The old cat said, "The noise in the wind and sand in the atmosphere." ”

"I thought it was Mai Dong singing."

"I tried all the bands I could use, but none of them worked, and all of them were killed in Ka-band, L-band, and C-band...... The weather was still too bad. The old cat shook his head, "The disturbance above our heads is too strong, and the sand and dust have accumulated a large amount of electric charge, and now it must be a lightning storm a few kilometers and a dozen kilometers above us." ”

Tang Yue returned the earphones to the old cat, "Is there no other means?" ”

"Electromagnetic interference in the natural environment is an indiscriminate suppression and blockage, and no frequency hopping will work, unless you have enough power to burn your own signal through this damn storm." The old cat shook his head.

"Can we increase the power?"

"It's already the biggest." The old cat shrugged, "In addition to increasing the power, it is actually okay to shorten the distance, if you can raise the position of the Kunlun station by sixty kilometers, or reduce the altitude of the United Space Station by sixty kilometers, then I can work harder." ”

It is impossible to raise the position of Kunlun Station by sixty kilometers, even the gods can't do it.

Let the joint space station lower the altitude of 60 kilometers, the old cat Tang Yue can't do it at present, it is a very complicated job to make such a big thing as the space station change orbit, there are many factors to consider, if there is a mistake, the space station may stray into the atmosphere, resulting in abnormal deceleration, and finally crash.

"The L-band and C-band are completely dead." The old cat shook his head, "There is only the howling of female ghosts in this channel, and I don't know if I can rescue it on the Ka channel." ”

"How to rescue?"

"There is only a silver lining." The old cat turned his head, "The signal anti-interference ability of the Ka-band is relatively strong, but its beam is very narrow and the directivity is very strong, for example, if the signal of the C-band is a broadcast that spreads in all directions, then the Ka-band is the light of a flashlight, and the signal transmitter of the Ka-band must be pointed in your direction accurately, so that you can receive the signal." ”

The old cat's explanation is very popular, and although Tang Yue is not a communication professional, he can understand it.

"Right now, the signal on the Ka-band can't be connected, probably because we haven't been able to point the transmitter and receiver antenna in the right direction." The old cat pointed to the top of his head, "After all, it's pitch black outside, and there is such a strong wind, the communication antenna set up on the side of the garage must have been blown over, and we can't pinpoint the location of the space station at all, and we can't track it." ”

"So what?" Tang Yue nodded.

"So if we can manually adjust the pointing of the antenna and find the exact direction of the space station, it will be possible to restore communication."

"Just adjust it manually, right? I'll go! Tang Yue said that he was going to wear the Mingguang armor.

"Wait."

The old cat grabbed him, bent down and pulled out an aluminum alloy box from the cabinet, it opened the box, uncovered the cushioning foam, took out a folding tripod and a pot, and unfolded and assembled it in front of Tang Yue, "This is a very old thing, there is no motor and servo system, it is purely manual, it has been placed here for many years, but it is reliable, in the early days of the Mars mission, those people relied on this thing to get in touch with the spacecraft in the sky, I originally thought that I would not need it." ”

Only then did Tang Yue recognize that this was a simple parabolic antenna, which was one person tall after the tripod was propped up, and a pot-shaped antenna was erected on top of the bracket with a cardan shaft.

"You just picked up a life from the storm and ran out again, don't you want to die? The garage is so far away, can you still come back if you go? The old cat pushed the antenna to Tang Yue, "We don't care about the antenna over there, we'll repair it when the sandstorm stops, and now use this antenna for emergency ...... You just stand it at the door of Kunlun Station, don't go far, and then listen to my command, let's try again. ”

Tang Yue looked up and down at the unsightly gadget in front of him, it looked like a TV pot used in his hometown in the countryside, and the parabolic antenna was only a few tens of centimeters in radius.

"Just such a gadget?" Tang Yue was a little skeptical, "Its antenna is not as big as your face, can the transmitting power be?" ”

"Its main role is to receive signals, and it's just a son." The old cat said, "As for its daddy...... At a distance of 400 kilometers above your head, it is taller than two of you, and it is powerful enough to roast a rabbit when turned on. ”