After Fang Hong finished giving instructions, Tian Jiayi went to make preparations. Not long after she left the living room, Yu Qiu came over with a document. She was now in charge of the Natural Science Foundation.
Yu Qiu came to sit next to Fang Hong and said: "The National Space Administration and the Space Center of the Academy of Sciences will take the lead in demonstrating and conceiving a deep space exploration project called 'Nine Sky Stars', hoping to seek financial support from the Natural Science Foundation, which includes' Academician Ye, chief engineer of the Chang'e series, and the scientific research team of Yinghuo 1 jointly developed this comprehensive large-scale deep space planetary exploration plan."
It is worth mentioning that "Yinghuo 1" was China's first Mars exploration mission, and it was a deep space exploration project in cooperation with Damao. Unfortunately, the first Mars exploration mission ended in failure.
On November 8, 2011, Yinghuo-1 set off from the Baikonur launch site on Da Mao's Zenith-2SB rocket. It arrived at the target low-Earth orbit ten minutes later and was confidently preparing to change orbit and head to Mars.
After the first successful orbit change, Damao's rocket encountered problems during the second orbit change and was unable to achieve the set orbit change goal.
It was originally planned that the engine on the probe would be ignited at the perigee time of 206 kilometers, and it would continue to change orbit to the Mars transfer orbit in the future. However, when the perigee was ready to accelerate the orbit change, the probe had not yet successfully changed orbit.
Now the investigation results have come out. It was a fault of Damao's chip. Its radiation resistance design was insufficient. The reason for the failure was that the detector's chip was impacted by high-energy particles in the universe and failed. As a result, it was unable to issue predetermined instructions and happened to change orbit. The system crashed and restarted, causing the orbit change command to fail to execute. Domestic Yinghuo 1 also suffered misfortune.
Finally, the probe experienced orbital attenuation and fell into the Pacific Ocean at 17:45 on January 15, 2012.
In fact, domestic rockets such as Changsha 3Y are capable of transporting Yinghuo-1 on their own. However, they are restricted by the fact that the construction of the domestic deep space exploration network has not yet been completed, and they have no experience in this area. Therefore, they chose to cooperate with Da Mao's deep space exploration network. Therefore, he chose to ride on Da Mao’s rocket and the Forbes Soil Good Probe to go to Mars together.
As a result, Damao's chip error caused China's first Mars exploration dream to break through low-Earth orbit.
We haven’t even left Earth, let alone Mars.
The failure of the first Mars exploration mission also cast a shadow on the country's deep space exploration field, which directly led to the suspension or shelving of subsequent plans. Don't mention deep space exploration. It is useless to mention it, and there is no point in trying to do it. Sufficient financial support.
Just when everyone was extremely frustrated, the Natural Science Foundation came out of the blue, which also rekindled the expectations of the domestic deep space exploration team.
The Natural Science Foundation is an institution that has the words "I am rich" written all over it in the eyes of many people in the basic scientific research field. The space laser gravitational wave detection project "Sky Mirror" started with an astronomical budget of 30 billion yuan. The survey space telescope project has reached an insane budget of 100 billion.
With the failure of "Yinghuo 1", while summarizing experience and lessons, we are unwilling to give up deep space exploration, but if we don't have money for space exploration, we will definitely not be able to do it.
At this time, the most indispensable thing for the Natural Science Foundation is money, and the deep space exploration team also found that the Natural Science Foundation is particularly fond of the field of space exploration, and especially likes to build big projects.
If funds can be obtained from this agency, deep space exploration is not only expected to restart, but it can even be bigger than Mars exploration.
Doesn’t the Natural Science Foundation like to build big projects?
Then I’ll get you a big one, so in the past year, the planetary exploration project plan code-named "Nine Heavens of Stars" came into being.
The master plan of the "Nine Sky Stars" project, and the specific planetary exploration missions, are named after the "Tianwen Series". The word "Tianwen" comes from Qu Yuan's long poem "Tianwen", which expresses the Chinese nation's tenacity in pursuing truth. and persistence, embodying the cultural inheritance of exploration of nature and space, implying that the pursuit of scientific truth is a long journey and the pursuit of scientific and technological innovation is never-ending.
The "Tianwen Series" uses "Nine Heavens of Stars" as the graphic logo of the project, with the eight planets in the solar system arranged in order, implying the exploration of the major planets in the solar system. That is to say, not only the exploration of Mars, but also the exploration of the eight planets. has plans.
Doesn’t the Natural Science Foundation like to build big projects?
Is this big enough?
But at this moment, Yu Qiu opened the file, glanced at the content, and said: "The Nine-Sky Plan aims to explore the major planets in the solar system. Currently, two deep space exploration plans have been proposed. One is for the detection of Mars, and the other is for the exploration of Mars. Exploration of Saturn.”
Hearing this, Fang Hong nodded and said concisely: "Tell me and listen."
Yu Qiu immediately flipped through a few pages of documents and said slowly: "The goal of the Saturn exploration plan is to detect the entire Saturn system, focusing on detecting Saturn's satellite Titan. According to the plan, it will be launched in 2016. Using the gravitational slingshot effect to accelerate the detector requires two flybys of Venus, then the Earth, then to Jupiter, and finally to Saturn. The total flight distance exceeds 3 billion kilometers and lasts nearly eight years. It is expected to be captured by the gravity of Saturn in 2024. .”
If you want to send a probe to a distant planet in the outer solar system like Saturn, you can only rely on the power and fuel of the rocket itself. It is absolutely impossible with the current level of human technology, not even the United States.
Whether it is the longer-term "Voyager" project or the "Cassini" project currently performing a detection mission on Saturn, neither can reach the destination solely by relying on the fuel it carries. The reason why it can send the probe there is They all use the "gravity slingshot" to gain extra acceleration.
The detector is using the gravitational pull of the planet to accelerate itself, so that it can achieve faster speeds and consume less fuel, making it possible to detect planets in the outer solar system.
If the Saturn exploration plan of the "Nine Days to the Stars" project is to be implemented, it will also need to use gravity to accelerate itself.
According to the specific flight route given by the Saturn exploration plan:
After being launched from the base air, the first flight over the orbit of Venus obtained a gravitational acceleration of 3.7 kilometers/second; the second flight over the orbit of Venus obtained a gravitational acceleration of 3.1 kilometers/second; and then it went to the Earth again, gaining time while flying over the Earth's orbit. , the gravitational acceleration is obtained at 4.1 kilometers/second.
Next, it will fly over the orbit of Mars, but the planned flight route will not encounter Mars, because it will not encounter Mars when it flies over the orbit of Mars during this time window, so it will not be able to detect Mars along the way.
Then it passes through the asteroid belt, then visits Jupiter, and finally flies over the orbit of Jupiter to obtain a gravitational acceleration of 2.1 kilometers/second. It takes nearly five years, and the detector enters a dormant state for the next three years or so, heading towards Saturn. flight.
The journey from Earth to its final destination at Saturn will take nearly eight years.
Detecting Saturn is the ultimate mission, but within five years of using a gravitational slingshot to accelerate, we have to visit the two planets Venus and Jupiter at close range. Naturally, we cannot give up such a good opportunity. The limited time window on the way will also These two planets have launched preliminary explorations. For example, when flying by Jupiter, they also plan to study Jupiter's magnetosphere.
The Saturn exploration plan can be said to be ambitious, but also extremely arduous.
You should know that the Cassini probe, which is currently on mission to Saturn, has 17 countries participating in the project. It is also one of the largest international cooperation projects since mankind entered the space age.
If you want to carry out the Saturn system exploration program in China, you can only do it by yourself. People in Europe and the United States will definitely not take you to play with it. The International Space Station, satellite navigation systems, etc. will exclude you.
Therefore, if domestic space exploration projects are to be carried out, we really have to rely on ourselves. However, since the "Yinghuo 1" project in cooperation with Damao failed last year, we don't really want to cooperate with other countries.
None of them were reliable, but in the end I found that I was the most reliable.
…
(End of chapter)
