lift off!”

A newly built Falcon 9 rocket lifted off at Cape Calaverar with the codename "Dragon-Gravity" spacecraft, an unmanned launch.

Almost a year ago, Musk proposed a "soft gravity solution", and after a long period of development, Lockheed and SpecaX turned it into a reality.

In fact, the most basic and important rope technology is very easy to solve, and the mass of the Dragon spacecraft weighing less than 20 tons is less than 10 tons at one end after separation, and the centrifugal force that rotates up is still very easy to solve.

The FGD part took 3 months to solve, but the design of the spacecraft needed to be overhauled, which took more than half a year.

The original design of the Dragon spacecraft did not take gravity into account, and in order for the astronauts to get the correct direction of gravity, a redocking in space was required.

That is, after entering space, the command module has to be separated from the service module, and then rotate 180 degrees, use the top docking rope on the top of the service module to unfold the module, and then start rotating by releasing the rope to a predetermined length.

Re-docking means that the command cabin should be improved, and the docking part should be paid special attention, which after all, should bear the super large centrifugal force when rotating.

And then there is the attitude control system, which is just as important as the rope system, which is a powerful RCS, the service module must have, the command module must have, that is, they provide the speed of rotation and stopping, and it must be accurate enough and work for a long time.

Finally, there is the problem of trim when the whole system rotates, which is the biggest problem in the design.

Although the weight difference between the two parts is not large, a slight weight difference or uneven center of mass under the high-speed rotation of 2 revolutions per minute will cause the attitude or orbit shift of the entire rotating body.

However, the mass and center of mass of both the service module and the command module are changing in real time, the former is constantly consuming fuel, and the latter is still living and walking around.

The change of the center of mass of the rotating body at both ends is unpredictable, so the computer that controls the RCS needs to be able to respond in time and intervene in time when the attitude exceeds the set limit, but generally it will not work as long as there is no major problem, because the fuel of the RCS needs to be saved.

The essence of the whole FGD system is the automatic attitude control system, which is much more difficult than the rope material.

More than 10 months later, the launch mass of the "Gravity Dragon" spacecraft reached an unprecedented 19 tons, which was more than 30% higher than the original manned Dragon, so the Falcon 9 rocket that launched it could not be reused, otherwise the capacity would not reach the standard.

Musk was originally going to use a Falcon 9 that had been in service for a longer time to carry out the mission, but Lockheed was afraid that the spacecraft that he had built with great difficulty would be destroyed by the N-hand spacecraft, and insisted on wasting a new rocket.

At 8 o'clock central time on the 22nd, mankind's first artificial gravity spacecraft arrived in low-earth orbit.

Houston spent 3 hours checking the overall condition of the ship and then confirming redocking.

The command module and the service module were gently separated, and the two were previously connected by explosive bolts that could only be used once, but now they have also been changed to provide a high-strength annular interface, which took a lot of effort to free up the middle rope link part.

The detached command module is first turned 180 degrees with the help of RCS, and the head is towards the command module and the top cover is thrown off, revealing the cable release end interface.

This was originally the docking port of the spacecraft, but now this situation obviously does not have the ability to dock with other spacecraft, and Lockheed's solution to this problem is to change the side exit to a docking interface, but this "Gravity Dragon" does not have it.

It took another hour and a half to complete the docking.

Houston continued to check the parameters until 16 p.m. when the rotation test was confirmed.

The rope used in the "gravity dragon" is a braided net hollow design, which is characterized by very space-saving and very high tensile strength, each string is wound in a multi-layer structure, the design redundancy has reached 500%, and the instantaneous maximum bearing capacity is higher, so it is unnecessary to worry about the rope breakage.

The two re-docked modules began to gradually widen the distance under the action of RCS, and the gray-white rope between the two was also slowly released, with a total length of 220 meters, which can generate 0.5G of comfortable gravity under the premise that the astronaut's body does not feel obvious dizziness, but the combined weight is not as heavy as Musk before weight loss.

Releasing the rope is a slow and careful process, if it is too fast, it will cause the two parts to move irregularly in the opposite direction under the stress of the rope after release, and the speed must be precisely controlled, and there is also a detection device on the release device that can measure the real-time tension force.

The whole release process took four long hours, and it was already a summer night for Ami.

The new director Robert was present in person, and the "gravity dragon" was of course strongly supported by NACA, and if it could win the first successful artificial gravity device of mankind, it would definitely be a great thing to be touted in front of the congressional lord.

Because the rope release process is very careful, the relative position of the command cabin and the service cabin is quite good, almost in a perfect straight line, and the rope is basically straight but not stressed.

Musk, who is still in Florida, also connected remotely through the control room there and said into the phone:

"Let it spin, Mr. Director, I have confidence in it - not confident in the experimental data, I am sure it will work."

Rob nodded and gave the order to rotate at a speed of 1 revolution per minute, and if the cabin could generate a gravity of about 0.1G, it could continue to increase the speed.

After the command from the ground was issued, the RCS systems of the command module and the service module first released gas in the outward direction to tighten the rope to a predetermined tension, and then, with the expectation of everyone, it generated an opposite thrust in the direction of about 85 degrees to the rope, and began to rotate around the non-existent central axis.

1 revolution per minute, then the speed of the rotating body is 11.5 meters per second, this speed is very easy to achieve, even if the RCS is already started at the minimum power, but still let the speed of the two modules increase rapidly, less than 20 seconds later, each turned off the RCS in the direction of motion.

In orbit at an altitude of 400 km, two spacecraft weighing about 9.5 tons each are connected by a cable and orbit like a binary star system.

The gravimeter housed in the command bay is accurate to the third decimal place, and now its display number jumps back and forth between "0.121" and "0.127".

Looking at the stability of the entire rotating system, according to the detection of the ground antenna array, no obvious orbital deviation was found, indicating that the RCS system successfully controlled the symmetry of the rotating body.

Now, humanity's first artificial gravity system is officially in use.

In Houston and Florida, applause and cheers rang out at the same time.

(End of chapter)