The first year of the galaxy, November 28. Diaphragm

After almost two months of sailing.

Tinder 107 has finally reached a synchronous orbit around Mars.

The reason why it took nearly two months was mainly because of the need to brake and slow down halfway, and gradually adjust the flight position to avoid passing by Mars.

After arriving in the Mars synchronous orbit, the Tinder 107 spacecraft has about 1,537 tons of mass left, of which 337 tons of working fluid and the remaining 1,200 tons are the mass of the spacecraft itself.

In the Earth's Space Division, a "Solar System Exploration Office" has been set up to manage extraterrestrial spacecraft, which is responsible for this work.

The Office of Solar System Exploration is responsible for the exploration and management of the solar system beyond the Earth-Moon system.

At present, the headquarters of the office is located on the island of Ceylon, and the person in charge is Meng Haiyang, an astronaut who returned to Earth from the Homo sapiens space station some time ago. Diaphragm

The office of the Solar System Exploration Office is actually located in Ceylon Space City.

At this time, Meng Haiyang was in the ground command center with dozens of personnel on duty.

Their office is not only the Tinder 107 spacecraft, but also has 16 geosynchronous orbit relay satellites that are designed to communicate with spacecraft that are on a long voyage.

"Chief Meng, Tinder 107 has successfully reached the Mars synchronous orbit and has been captured by the gravitational pull of Mars."

Meng Haiyang looked at the holographic fire star map on the big screen: "Then put the detection satellite and the communication relay satellite!" ”

"Okay."

It is about 92.75 million kilometers away from Earth in the synchronous orbit of Mars. Diaphragm

It took about 310 seconds for the long-wave radio signal transmitted from Earth to be picked up by the Tinder 107 spacecraft.

This is the interstellar communication problem.

It takes tens of millions of kilometers to start at a distance, and even the speed of light takes hundreds of seconds.

After receiving the Earth's command, Tinder 107 began to act.

This time, the Tinder 107 spacecraft carried 30 special satellites, each of which was about 10 tons, and all of them were powered by nuclear batteries and did not use solar panels.

The 30 satellites are 6 communication relay satellites, 6 geological remote sensing satellites, 4 meteorological satellites, 4 gravity detection satellites, 4 magnetic field detection satellites, 2 laser ranging satellites, and 4 cosmic ray and energetic particle monitoring satellites.

Soon the Tinder spacecraft dropped the satellites one by one. Diaphragm

Because these satellites use a nuclear battery scheme, their EFI propulsion is very powerful and does not require the use of chemical fuels as auxiliary power.

The supercomputing system carried by the Tinder spacecraft fine-tunes the position of the satellite according to a preset program.

The Earth's command center is too far away, and the only way to reduce the remote control problem caused by distance is to reduce it.

Although this will result in the waste of some working fluid, it is at least safe.

Even if the company has a lot of money, Meng Haiyang is not careless, after all, these satellites are the hard work of all employees of the company.

He kept an eye on the feedback data until the last satellite was set up, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

"Huhu ......" picked up the thermos cup and took a sip of milk tea, he said helplessly: "This kind of communication distance is too far, unless astronauts can be sent to Mars for a long time in the future, otherwise this kind of remote control is too troublesome." "Ahh

"Director Meng, you have been to the space station, I heard that the space station can already create artificial gravity, so it is possible to have permanent employees on Mars in the future." A female employee asked with a smile.

But Meng Haiyang shook his head: "The artificial gravity of the space station is not yet mature, and it is still a little difficult to stay in outer space for a long time. ”

Another eager young man asked, "Chief, when are we going to land on the surface of Mars?" ”

Meng Haiyang scolded with a smile: "What's the hurry, you can't eat hot tofu in a hurry, now it's time to detect the data first, and with detailed geological and surface information, the risk of landing can be controlled within a reasonable range." ”

Although Homo sapiens borrowed a lot of databases from NASA, there is a lot of data about Mars.

But Meng Haiyang still didn't take it lightly, after all, NASA hasn't explored Mars many times, and a lot of data will definitely not be too comprehensive.

After chatting with the monitors for a while, Meng Haiyang went back to his office. Diaphragm

Before his ass was hot, Foley, the leader of the exploration project team, came to the door.

"Director, this is the plan I just made, you can take a look."

As soon as Meng Haiyang looked at it, he immediately called a good guy in his heart.

In addition to the two Tinder spacecraft that have been confirmed to be launched next, more than a dozen projects have been added to explore Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn and the asteroid belt.

The focus is on Venus, the asteroid belt, and Jupiter.

"It's too dense, won't it be too rushed?" Meng Haiyang voiced some of his concerns.

However, Representative hurriedly explained: "Director, it's not that I'm in a hurry, this plan is calculated based on our space capacity, and this will not affect our development and investment in other space projects." "Ahh

Meng Haiyang was still puzzled: "However, will it be too radical to land on Mars next year, and the nuclear explosion propulsion plan is risky, especially the manned spacecraft." ”

Although emotionally speaking, he certainly hopes that the employees of Homo sapiens can become the first humans to land on Mars.

But he had to think about the lives of astronauts.

"Director, Musk's space exploration company has decided to launch an unmanned spacecraft to explore Mars in February next year to prepare for the next manned landing on Mars, and we can't lag behind each other." Foley explains anxiously.

In this regard, Meng Haiyang frowned, of course he knew the actions of Space Exploration and NASA, but he didn't want to be led by Musk.

"Foley, you think too highly of SpaceX and NSAS, and I won't agree to a manned mission to Mars until a safe nuclear propulsion spacecraft is tested."

"But ......."

Meng Haiyang directly interrupted the other party's words: "Foley! Never to mention, there is no need for us to take risks. ”

“…… All right! Although Foley believes that the company's technology is already good, there is no need to be restrained, and he should let go of his hands and feet.

In fact, his idea, not to mention that Meng Haiyang would not agree, even if it was reported to the Space Division, it was estimated that it would not be approved.

After all, there has been no long-term testing, and there is no plan to return to Earth quickly, and if something goes wrong, those astronauts who sail to Mars will be more than lucky.

As for Musk's rhetoric, Homo sapiens doesn't really care.

Homo sapiens companies will be more productive day by day, and technological development will be changing with each passing day.

And America can't even fully integrate it internally, let alone the Space Exploration Company that lives in Americaka's body. Diaphragm

The resources and technology of both sides are not of the same magnitude.

Musk's desire to land on Mars first is basically impossible.

Because the window to travel from Earth to Mars this year has passed, the next window will be 600 days away.

The landing spacecraft definitely needs to launch an unmanned spacecraft and a simulated landing spacecraft, which requires at least 3~5 spacecraft to be launched to Mars, and then you can prepare for a manned landing on Mars.

After this set of processes are arranged, it is estimated that the real manned landing on Mars will take until around 2040 at the earliest.

If you test an unmanned spacecraft once or twice, and then directly launch a manned landing spacecraft, it will not be to explore Mars, but to send Mars to death.

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