Chapter 487 Arrival
November 28th, the first year of Xinghe.
After nearly two months of sailing.
Spark 107 finally reached Mars' synchronous orbit.
The reason why it took nearly two months was mainly because it had to brake and slow down in the middle, and gradually adjust the flight direction to avoid passing by Mars.
After arriving at Mars' synchronous orbit, the Spark 107 spacecraft still had a mass of approximately 1,537 tons, of which 337 tons were working fluids and the remaining 1,200 tons was the mass of the spacecraft itself.
In the Earth's Space Division, in order to manage extraterrestrial spacecraft, a "Solar System Exploration Office" was specially established to be responsible for this work.
The Solar System Exploration Office is responsible for the exploration and management of the solar system beyond the Earth-Moon system.
The office is currently headquartered in Ceylon, and the person in charge is astronaut Meng Haiyang, who returned to Earth from the Homo sapiens space station some time ago.
The Solar System Exploration Office is actually located in the Ceylon Space City.
At this time, Meng Haiyang was in the ground command center with dozens of on-duty personnel.
Their office not only has the Spark 107 Mars exploration spacecraft, but also 16 geosynchronous orbit relay satellites, which are specifically used to communicate with long-distance spacecraft.
"Director Meng, Spark 107 has successfully reached Mars' synchronous orbit and has been captured by Mars' gravity."
Meng Haiyang looked at the holographic Mars map on the big screen and said, "Then let's launch the detection satellite and the communication relay satellite!"
"OK."
In Mars' synchronous orbit, about 92.75 million kilometers away from Earth.
The long-wave radio signal sent from the Earth took about 310 seconds to be received by the Spark 107 spacecraft.
This is the problem of interstellar communication.
For a distance of tens of millions of kilometers, it would take hundreds of seconds even at the speed of light.
After receiving instructions from Earth, Spark 107 began to take action.
This time, the Spark 107 spacecraft carried 30 special satellites, each weighing about 10 tons. All of them are powered by nuclear batteries instead of 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 high-energy particle monitoring satellites.
Soon the Spark spacecraft launched these satellites one by one.
Because these satellites use nuclear batteries, their electrojet thrusters are very powerful and do not require chemical fuel as auxiliary power.
The supercomputer system carried by the Spark spacecraft fine-tunes the position of the satellite according to preset programs.
The command center on Earth is too far away, and this is the only way to reduce the remote control difficulties caused by distance.
Although doing so will result in some working fluid being wasted, it is at least safe.
Even though the company is wealthy, Meng Haiyang did not do anything rash. After all, these satellites are the result of the hard work of all the employees of the company.
He kept a close eye on various feedback data until the deployment of the last satellite was completed, and then he breathed a sigh of relief.
"Huff..." After picking up the thermos and taking a sip of milk tea, he said helplessly, "This kind of communication distance is too far. Unless we can send astronauts to Mars for a long time in the future, this kind of remote control is really too troublesome."
"Director Meng, you've been to the space station. I heard that the space station can already create artificial gravity, so it may be 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 difficult to stay in outer space for a long time."
Another young man who was eager to try asked: "Director, when will we land on the surface of Mars?"
Meng Haiyang laughed and scolded: "Why are you in such a hurry? You can't eat hot tofu in a hurry. Now we need to collect the data first. With detailed geological and surface information, the risk of landing can be controlled within a reasonable range."
Although Sapiens has borrowed a lot of databases from NASA, including a large amount of data about Mars.
But Meng Haiyang did not take it lightly. After all, NASA had not explored Mars many times, and much of the data would definitely not be comprehensive.
After chatting with a group of monitors for a while, Meng Haiyang returned to his office.
Before he could even get comfortable in his seat, Foley, the head of the exploration project team, came to visit him.
"Director, this is the plan I just made, take a look."
When Meng Haiyang took a look at it, he immediately exclaimed in his heart, "Wow!"
There are more than a dozen projects, in addition to the two Mars exploration spacecraft that have been confirmed to be launched, Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn and asteroid belt exploration projects have been added.
The focus is on Venus, the asteroid belt and Jupiter.
"It's too crowded, will it be too rushed?" Meng Haiyang expressed some of his concerns.
However, Foley hurriedly explained: "Director, I'm not in a hurry. This plan is calculated based on our space transportation capacity. It will not affect the development and investment of our other space projects."
Meng Haiyang still looked conflicted: "But, is it too radical to have a manned landing on Mars next year? Nuclear explosion propulsion is risky, especially for manned spacecraft."
Although emotionally speaking, he certainly hopes that the employees of Sapiens can become the first humans to land on Mars.
But he had to consider the lives of the 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 subsequent manned landing on Mars. We can't fall behind them," Foley explained anxiously.
In response to this, Meng Haiyang frowned. He certainly knew the actions of SpaceX and NASA, but he did not want to be led by Musk.
"Foley, you think too highly of SpaceX and NSAS. I will not agree to a manned mission to Mars until a safe nuclear explosion-propelled spacecraft has been tested."
"But……"
Meng Haiyang interrupted the other party directly: "Foli! Stop talking, there is no need for us to take risks."
"...Okay!" Although Foley thought that the company's technology was already good, there was no need to restrain itself and it was time to go all out and do a great job.
In fact, not to mention that Meng Haiyang would not agree with his idea, even if it was reported to the Space Business Department, it would probably not be approved.
After all, there has been no long-term testing and no plan to return to Earth quickly. If something goes wrong, the astronauts traveling to Mars will be in great danger.
As for Musk's lofty ambitions, Sapiens actually doesn't care.
The productivity of Homo sapiens companies will increase day by day, and technological development will change with each passing day.
America can't even fully integrate itself internally, let alone the space exploration company that is parasitic on America.
The resources and technology of both sides are not on the same level.
It is basically impossible for Musk to land on Mars first.
Because this year's window for traveling from Earth to Mars has passed, the next window will not be until 600 days later.
The landing spacecraft must first launch an unmanned spacecraft and a simulated landing spacecraft. This will require launching at least 3 to 5 spacecraft to Mars before we can prepare for a manned landing on Mars.
With this set of processes in place, it is estimated that the earliest a manned landing on Mars will take place is around 2040.
If we just test an unmanned spacecraft once or twice and then directly launch a manned landing spacecraft, that would not be a way to explore Mars, but a way to die on Mars.
