Jiangcheng, 101 Satellite Research Institute.
Since the launch of the low-orbit communication satellite project three years ago, the satellite research institute has also begun to expand rapidly.
This year, a large satellite industrial park was built directly.
"Director Zhong, I'm sorry to trouble you this time."
Zhang Xingyang smiled and said slightly apologetically.
"It's nothing, these are what we should do."
Zhong Zixin didn't feel any trouble.
And even if it's really troublesome, it must be done for Zhang Xingyang's sake.
After all, if it weren't for Zhang Xingyang's proposal, there would be no entire low-orbit communication satellite project, and there would be no today's 101 Satellite Research Institute.
"As for early warning satellites, please be more careful."
This time Zhang Xingyang made a special trip to the Satellite Research Institute for professional missile early warning satellites.
This was also after the development of Dongfeng-17 was completed, and the country suddenly discovered that its existing means could not prevent such an attack.
It was decided that a complete set of professional missile defense systems must be developed.
In this system, professional anti-missile reconnaissance satellites are an extremely important part.
"Dean Zhang, it may take some development time for infrared detectors."
Although there are certain difficulties in the development of new satellites, Zhong Zixin still patted his chest and said:
"But we will definitely be able to complete the development of the satellite before the end of the year."
Missile early warning satellites mainly use high-sensitivity infrared detectors to detect ballistic missiles by detecting the tail flame when the ballistic missile is launched.
However, this detection method also has certain problems.
That is because the identification accuracy of heat sources is not particularly high, resulting in a relatively high false alarm rate, and a relatively low identification efficiency for natural phenomena such as fires, volcanic eruptions, and meteorites.
It is necessary to upgrade the program based on the existing infrared detection equipment so that the detection equipment can filter out infrared signals that obviously do not match the characteristics of missiles.
For example, large-scale, low-heat infrared signals such as fires.
"It must be noted that accurate identification of missile heat source characteristics, even if the identification accuracy is slightly lower, cannot filter out possible heat source information."
Zhang Xingyang couldn't help but warn Zhong Zixin after he mentioned the infrared detector.
Zhang Xingyang's concerns are not unfounded. Such situations have occurred in later wars.
Because the heat source identification characteristic threshold is relatively high, the early warning satellite did not detect the enemy missile immediately after it was launched, which ultimately caused heavy losses to the command center.
The reason is simply that their missiles changed the fuel formula and lowered the temperature of the engine nozzle.
In his memory, although the vivid case has not happened at this time, it does not prevent Zhang Xingyang from making preparations for it in advance.
"Ionization detectors must be indispensable. This is an important means of detecting ballistic missiles."
"Dual detection can greatly improve the accuracy of satellite early warning."
Since a lot has been said, Zhang Xingyang couldn't help but say more.
Ionization detectors detect ballistic missiles by detecting disturbances in the ionosphere of the atmosphere.
During the missile launch and ascent, when entering the ionosphere, the engine tail flame will cause considerable disturbance to the ionosphere.
This detection method is much more accurate than infrared detectors.
However, this method is not without its drawbacks, because it must be discovered when the missile enters the ionosphere, so the speed of discovery is much slower. At this time, the missile is about to enter the middle atmosphere and fly outside the atmosphere.
Of course, using the dual method of infrared detection and ionization detection can well avoid the shortcomings of both.
After the infrared detector discovers a special heat source on the ground, the ionization detector will conduct the next step of detecting the heat source.
After the infrared detector detects a special heat source, it will notify the ground radar station and command center.
In fact, ground radar stations are also a very important part of the entire missile defense system.
Ground radar is mainly meter-wave radar. Compared with ordinary radar, the operating range of this radar is very long, generally reaching thousands of kilometers.
But they are also not perfect, and their shortcomings are also obvious. The tracking accuracy is very poor, they cannot perform precise detection, provide guidance for anti-missile, and can only be used as warning radars.
And even so, the long-range early warning radar cannot provide early warning at the moment the missile is launched.
The early warning radar must be able to detect the missile when it is launched to an altitude of several thousand meters.
This is mainly determined by the physical characteristics of the radar wave itself.
And because the earth itself also has curvature, this kind of radar has a large low-altitude blind zone.
In the 1970s, China also carried out similar long-range early warning radar designs.
Today, among the mountains in the north, you can still see a huge engineering relic, which is the 7010 radar of the 640 Project.
This huge radar array based on a hillside faced the north, and its goal was to provide early warning of nuclear missiles that might be thrown over by its northern neighbor, who had no good relations at the time.
"General Master Zhang, don't worry."
Zhong Zixin also understood Zhang Xingyang's worries, although Zhang Xingyang did not clearly explain the specific use of the satellite.
But judging from the various equipment above, this satellite is mainly used to defend against intercontinental ballistic missile attacks from across the ocean.
"With our current technical strength, as you know, such technical parameters are not a problem for us."
Zhang Xingyang quite agrees with this point.
After undertaking the development of low-orbit communication satellites, the One Hundred and One Satellite Research Institute not only built a new satellite industrial park.
The most important thing is that it has attracted many domestic and foreign talents.
After all, at this time, in a world that had just experienced a financial bubble, many original rocket and satellite projects were unsustainable.
The technical personnel involved in the original projects had nowhere to go. At this time, the 101 Satellite Research Institute, which had many satellite development projects, extended an olive branch to them.
"Your technical strength is indeed good, but this time the satellite is a geosynchronous orbit satellite, and the satellite platform must be done well."
Although in the past three years, the One Hundred and One Satellite Research Institute has produced many communication satellite models.
However, these satellites are generally small in size. This is mainly because communication satellites are only planned to be used for two or three years.
The missile early warning satellites needed this time are different, because they need to monitor most of the areas on the earth and must be deployed at higher orbital altitudes.
Moreover, it will be used for fifteen years, which makes the early warning satellite a large satellite.
When Zhang Xingyang and others formulated the technical requirements, they calculated that the satellite weighed at least three tons.
This is almost completely different from a communication satellite that weighs only four to five hundred kilograms.
This also puts forward higher requirements for satellite platforms. There are not many platforms that can be used by geosynchronous orbit satellites in China.
The most advanced satellite platform currently is the Dongfanghong-3 platform.
It adopts full three-axis attitude stabilization technology, which allows the satellite to maintain its own attitude stability at all times in space, instead of spinning due to a slight change.
Bi-component unified propulsion technology, carbon fiber composite structure and other technologies.
However, even this most advanced satellite platform in China is still a little too small for Zhang Xingyang and his current requirements.
The power of many devices has to be limited.
This also made Zhang Xingyang have higher expectations for their satellite development work:
"Director Zhong, the development of large-scale satellite platforms must continue to advance."
"In the future, we will have more and more demands for large satellite platforms in geostationary orbit."
In fact, with the development of the country in the future, the demand for various large-scale satellite platforms will become very large.
Whether used for communications or space exploration, these satellite platforms are indispensable.
“We have too little experience with large satellite platforms.”
"There are still many difficulties in developing it."
Zhong Zixin also felt helpless when he mentioned this topic.
Large satellite platforms are different from low-orbit satellites because they have longer service life and greater power, so there are more problems on the satellites.
Even just the heat dissipation of satellites is a very serious problem.
Unlike the rich material on the ground, heat dissipation can be carried out through continuous heat exchange.
In space, especially above geostationary orbit, the density of matter is very low, and it is very difficult to exchange heat with the environment.
If the satellite platform cannot be dissipated, the internal heat will continue to rise and accumulate, which will eventually have a serious impact on the many precision equipment inside.
Therefore, the cooling system of a large satellite platform must be efficient enough to dissipate the heat generated during the operation of the equipment on the satellite in a timely manner.
This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to difficulties with large satellite platforms.
They need to overcome difficulties such as advanced satellite structural design, high-power power supply and distribution systems, advanced integrated electronics, and high-thrust multi-mode electric propulsion systems.
"You guys should work harder. If you have any special difficulties that you can't solve, call me."
Zhang Xingyang glanced at his watch, left a word with Zhong Zixin, and prepared to leave.
"Currently, we are not short of equipment, talent, and funds. The only thing we are short of is time."
Zhong Zixin said with emotion.
In fact, it’s not that they can’t build the large-scale satellite platform just mentioned, but it’s hard to say when.
It may take several years to produce a sufficiently mature product.
But now Zhang Xingyang doesn't give them that much time, which puts great pressure on Zhong Zixin.
"Everyone is short of time now, not just you."
In fact, Zhang Xingyang's time is even more tight, and every minute he has now wants to be broken into two minutes.
It's just that he is still relatively young and his body can still support it.
Otherwise, based on his current work intensity, if anyone else had come, he might have collapsed long ago.
After saying goodbye to Zhong Zixin briefly, Zhang Xingyang got into his bulletproof car.
Since the successful experiment of the Dongfeng-17 hypersonic ballistic missile, Zhang Xingyang's security level has been raised to a higher level.
Now when traveling, security personnel are almost always around me, and I have basically said goodbye to civil aviation.
This is also because he is currently responsible for many high-security projects, and his life safety must be guaranteed to a certain extent.
"Let's go to the supercomputing center."
Zhang Xingyang said to the driver sitting in front.
Jiangcheng Supercomputing Center was just put into operation this year.
Built next to a large lake in Jiangcheng, it mainly uses lake water to physically cool the servers in the supercomputing center.
The supercomputing center is owned by the Rocket Research Institute and was originally used to simulate and calculate the aerodynamic model of new deep space rockets.
But now it has a new owner and a new purpose.
To this end, Zhang Xingyang also did ideological work for many people in the institute, especially Qiao Yang, who originally looked forward to the stars and the moon until the supercomputing center was completed.
Before the completion of the supercomputing center, Qiao Yang had been complaining that the small supercomputer in the institute was not powerful, and many models could not run.
After finally waiting until this time, even the supercomputing center, which was not considered backward internationally, suddenly disappeared again.
It was really difficult for Qiao Yang to accept it, and in the end Zhang Xingyang came forward to make him accept it with his personality charm.
It also promised that the Rocket Research Institute will build a more advanced supercomputing center in the future.
The repurpose of the supercomputing center is also for the missile defense system.
If you want an anti-missile missile to accurately hit an incoming missile, you must use supercomputing to calculate the trajectory of the ballistic missile.
To temporarily build a new supercomputing center, the construction time will take at least two years.
This is a relatively long time for the establishment of a missile defense system.
"Director Zhao, we meet again."
When we arrived at the supercomputing center, a tall and tall middle-aged man was already waiting at the door.
After Zhang Xingyang got out of the car, he took the initiative to greet him and shook his hand warmly.
Zhao Bingzhi, formerly the director of the Computer Research Institute, is now the head of the Jiangcheng Supercomputing Center.
Specially responsible for building supercomputing models in missile defense systems.
"haven't seen you for a long time."
Zhao Bingzhi is relatively introverted and is not particularly enthusiastic towards others.
Zhang Xingyang also knew this, so after a simple greeting.
While walking to the supercomputer room with Zhao Bingzhi, they talked about the technical issues of supercomputing.
"How is the supercomputing situation now?"
The supercomputer of Jiangcheng Supercomputing Center comes from Shuguang, and its peak calculation speed can reach 403.2 billion times per second.
The technical level is also considered to be first-class internationally.
Compared with the Galaxy-2 supercomputer used by Zhang Xingyang at the National University of Science and Technology before, its performance has been improved hundreds of times.
"The supercomputer is running in good condition, and the peak calculation speed in the current test has reached 398 billion times."
Zhao Bingzhi's answer still satisfied Zhang Xingyang.
The difference from the theoretical peak calculation speed is only 5 billion times. The difference is not very big and is still acceptable.
However, what Zhao Bingzhi said later made Zhang Xingyang become serious:
"However, our current models don't seem to be ideal, and the trajectory accuracy is less than 50%." (End of Chapter)
