Mars is the closest planet to Earth, and it is also the most similar planet we know of to Earth, and earthlings figuratively call it the "Red Neighbor". Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

For thousands of years, humans have been looking at Mars with curiosity.

In the night sky, Mars is very bright, reaching a magnitude of -2.9 at great opposition (the moment when Mars is closest to Earth), and even 10 times brighter than Polaris.

Therefore, generations of astronomers have always insisted on observing and studying Mars since ancient times. With the development of space science and technology, people have gradually come to know some of the true features of Mars in the past two centuries.

Mars has many similarities with Earth, and its diameter is 6,796 kilometers, which is about 1/2 of Earth's, just like a small Earth.

Because Mars is farther away from the Sun than the Earth, it naturally receives less solar energy than the Earth, so the surface temperature is much lower than that of the Earth. Mars is estimated to be about 30C cooler than Earth's temperature on average.

Mars has two natural moons, but both are much smaller than our moon, known in astronomy as Phobos and Deimos, and their irregular shapes are supposed to be asteroids captured by Mars in space.

Mars also has an atmosphere, but it is much thinner than Earth's.

Similar to Earth's rotation period, a solar day on Mars is 24 hours and 27 minutes, but the orbital period varies greatly, lasting 687 days.

Mars also has seasonal changes, so the poles of Mars sometimes have white polar crowns (solid carbon dioxide, not water), and the area of the polar crowns increases or decreases with the seasons, like the ice caps at the north and south poles of the Earth.

"It's about two days before we get close to Mars......" Looking out through the porthole, Mars in the universe was already clearly visible, and thinking of the upcoming Mars exploration operation, Yuan Haochen's heart also swelled with a little excitement.

I remember when I was a child, every sunny summer night, Yuan Haochen would gather with the children in the village to play and cool off by the refreshing Sun Moon Stream.

It is fun and silly for children to count the stars in the sky together, because they often get confused and cannot continue before they can count half of them.

The small mountain village by the Sun Moon Creek is surrounded by mountains and rivers, the natural environment is very pleasant, and the light pollution is much smaller than that in the city, so there are naturally many more stars that can be seen.

Among the twinkling stars in the sky, there is a very bright, red star, which is very eye-catching.

The older child told Hara that it was Mars. The eldest child also told Yuan Haochen how the earthlings fought the Martians science fiction story, and the storyline was vividly and eloquently, which made Yuan Haochen listen to the thrilling and left a deep impression, and at the same time, it also made Yuan Haochen have a very strong curiosity about Mars and the vast universe!

"Hey, why are you in a daze here. Let's go, the captain seems to be going to lecture. Durunik found Hara, who was standing by the porthole in a trance.

"Lecture? Is it about to enter the deceleration phase? Yuan Haochen didn't ask anything, and thought to himself.

When Hara and Durunik arrived at the operation module, the people in the starship spaceship had already arrived, and the rest of the people had rushed over one after another in the next few minutes.

"Guys, I'm sure you can already see the big orange guy in space, and the Starship spacecraft is expected to approach Mars in two days. Because our current speed has exceeded the third cosmic velocity, from now on, the starship spaceship will enter a phase of gradual deceleration. Frank spoke when he saw that everyone had arrived.

"In order to be able to fly smoothly into the arms of Mars, the Starship spacecraft will steadily slow down to 3.5 km/s in the coming day. Acceleration (negative acceleration in this case) is not very fast, but to be safe, try not to exercise too vigorously throughout the day......"

After Frank explained the many precautions, he began to discuss the specific deceleration next with Jenson, the pilot of the starship spaceship.

According to the plan, the deceleration of the Starship spacecraft will still rely on the traditional chemical propulsion system to complete.

Because the chemical propulsion system is highly controllable, it can perform a continuous and smooth deceleration motion for the next few days.

"How much fuel is expected to be consumed during the entire deceleration process?" Frank asked.

"The consumption of chemical fuels will reach 20 percent, and the total amount of fuel remaining is expected to be 62 percent after entering the orbit of Mars." Jenson replied as he manipulated.

"With 62% of the surplus, if there is enough food and other supplies, we can return to Earth smoothly even if the return trip is not accelerated by the nuclear pulse propulsion system." Frank nodded.

The main task of the nuclear pulse propulsion system in this Mars exploration operation is to accelerate the Starship spacecraft during the departure and return phases to achieve the purpose of shortening the space travel time.

Without the acceleration of the nuclear pulse propulsion system, the Starship spacecraft could have reached Mars with traditional propulsion technology, but it would have taken longer because the smooth flight phase was much slower.

In addition, nuclear pulse propulsion systems have an important advantage over chemical propulsion systems, which can carry much higher total energy.

Overall, the power performance of the chemical propulsion system is not bad, but because it cannot be carried in large quantities, it often runs out of fuel quickly within a few hours of space flight.

Nuclear fuel will be much less constrained in terms of volume and mass, and the only technical bottleneck is the utilization rate and stability control technology of nuclear fuel.

Even the nuclear pulse propulsion system designed by the Interstellar Exploration Alliance, the most high-tech team on Earth, is only in the initial stage of development of the nuclear propulsion system, and it is still a long way from being applied to the requirements of ultra-long-distance interstellar navigation.

............

In the vast universe, the starship spaceship, which had been flying smoothly, began to continuously and steadily eject high-speed air propellant forward.

As the high-velocity propellant was ejected, the speed of the Starship spacecraft began to slowly decrease.

After more than a month of space flight, the IEA Mars landing exploration team finally arrived in front of Mars......

(To be continued) (Welcome to join the book friends exchange group: 529839423)