Chapter 1003 The Whereabouts of Kitty Hawk
This situation was completely unexpected for everyone present.
Several leaders from the Navy and the General Armament Department looked at each other, and then almost all looked at the people in charge of the development of Ocean No. 1.
There was shock, confusion, question and a little bit of suspicion in his expression.
The interpretation is probably -
Wasn't this something you arranged in advance?
"Cough-cough-"
Finally, it was Chang Haonan who reacted first, cleared his throat, and explained:
"Technically speaking, we can only say that there was an information flow in the remote sensing results that triggered the program's judgment mechanism."
"In order to ensure that there are no missed alarms, we specifically lowered the program's threshold before launching, so... it could also be a false alarm."
After all, satellites are just a means of obtaining information. The real work of identifying information and making judgments ultimately depends on humans.
Therefore, for the satellite side, it is better to have too much than too little.
Only content that is 100% certain to contain no important information will be excluded; as long as there is a 1% chance of suspicion, it will be retained.
This is exactly the situation that Chang Haonan just talked about.
Of course, having said that, the main reason for saying this is to be on the safe side.
The algorithm he developed is unlikely to have an accuracy rate that is shockingly low, even if the threshold is lowered.
So, let alone the other people, even Chang Haonan himself was somewhat looking forward to it.
But amidst the anticipation, there is also some worry.
Worrying about what might happen if expectations are not met, and the subsequent disappointment.
but no matter.
The result is what we have to see.
So, the group of people, who could no longer sit still, stood up and quickly walked to the big screen in the measurement and control center.
"Although the test plan is to have the satellite send back complete data, since we have time today, how about testing the algorithm that Comrade Haonan developed in advance?"
Luan Wenjie glanced at Chang Haonan and Lin Senming beside him.
Strictly speaking, today we are testing the basic functions of the satellite. It doesn’t matter what specific information is sent back, as long as we complete the process.
So, the answer is of course yes.
Chang Haonan nodded and signaled a staff member next to him to choose to send back only the filtered information.
16540 kilobytes is actually just over 16MB.
The upper limit of Ocean No. 80's onboard storage capacity is MB, which means that about one-fifth of the "useful" data was captured.
For computers on the ground, 16MB is certainly an insignificant amount of data.
However, it takes a very long time for the ground-to-space link to transmit this data.
And if we were to transfer all the nearly 80MB of content back, even one transfer window would not be enough.
This is why a round of data screening is required on the satellite side in advance.
……
As a program that is not designed for the open market, it is naturally impossible for the designers to put too much effort into fancy UI.
Therefore, there is no transfer progress bar like in Windows to visually show how much time is left.
The atmosphere in the measurement and control center hall was a little depressing for a while.
The air seemed to freeze.
"report!"
When everyone was about to lose track of time, a technician behind the console suddenly stood up and said loudly:
"Data transfer completed, visualization in progress!"
With just one sentence, the anxiety in everyone's heart disappeared instantly.
Several officers from the navy stood up subconsciously.
Data processing is much faster in comparison.
After all, it's only 16MB.
A few minutes of work.
"Quick, put the image on the big screen!"
Even Chang Haonan, who was usually calm, had a slightly distorted voice at this moment.
After some operations, a picture finally appeared on the big screen of the measurement and control center... or strictly speaking, a group of pictures.
When a remote sensing satellite needs to take pictures of a wide area, it is of course impossible to keep it on all the time like a video recorder. Instead, it takes multiple images of each area and then transmits the data back to the ground for stitching.
The final effect may not be as good as if it were done in one go, but the purpose of satellite remote sensing is not to take artistic photos, so it is sufficient in most cases.
In an instant, everyone in the hall, except those who had work to do, focused their attention on the satellite image.
However, even after a round of screening, the amount of information contained in the 16MB grayscale photo is still not small.
What greeted everyone's eyes was still just a vast gray sea.
There was almost nothing for the eyes to focus on.
"It seems... that there is nothing?"
Someone asked in a less confident voice.
"Bigger."
Chang Haonan took a deep breath and gave the order in a deep voice.
Although the screen size of the measurement and control center is large, the resolution is actually average.
Tiny information on a large-size image can easily appear as several discontinuous pixels.
Sure enough, after magnification, as the focus position of the image continued to change, Chang Haonan soon discovered a long light-colored mark at a seam where the two pictures were spliced together.
"stop!"
He quickly raised his hand and pointed to a location on the big screen:
"look here!"
"It seems... a track?"
A naval leader quickly speculated.
The wake generated by a large ship traveling at high speed may extend for thousands or even tens of kilometers, which is an excellent means of detection for both satellites and submarines.
After all, as long as you follow the tail current, you will find the real culprit sooner or later.
"Keep zooming in!"
Chang Haonan suppressed his excitement and tried his best to keep his tone calm when giving orders.
Sure enough, this time, within a few minutes, everyone saw a blurry bright white shadow.
"It's a ..."
Someone wanted to judge the target model based on the visual effect, but the voice stopped abruptly after he started talking:
"Boat?"
This area is at the seam of two frames. The angle is awkward, and it has been spliced later. The imaging effect is average. In addition, the resolution of the large screen is very low, which makes the outline of the shadow look... a bit abstract.
Even to say it is a ship is not entirely identifiable by its appearance.
But according to common sense, something sailing at high speed on the sea can only be a ship.
As for what kind of ship it is...
That’s really hard to analyze.
"Comrade Haonan."
After trying to get closer to the big screen to watch without any results, the naval leader put on his glasses again and came to Chang Haonan:
"What do you think is the probability that this thing will be a target of our interest?"
Chang Haonan frowned slightly:
"In theory, the onboard screening program can judge the properties of the target through some features that are not easy for the human eye to identify. In other words, the outline that we think is abstract may not be abstract to it."
"But I'm not sure what the probability is."
"Um……"
The other person lowered his head and paced back and forth while thinking.
Not long after, he stopped again:
"Where is this sea area located?"
Soon, a technician reported a coordinate.
As a naval commander, he deciphered the approximate location of the coordinates almost instantly:
"East of the Philippines, north of the Palau Islands..."
Then, he turned and looked at another naval officer behind him:
"Staff Officer Zhu, go check and see if there is any public information about which aircraft carrier is operating near this sea area."
When not carrying out combat missions, the routes and schedules of aircraft carriers, at least US aircraft carriers, are not completely confidential, and can even be easily found on public websites.
Of course, the specific coordinates at a certain moment can only be known through reconnaissance means such as ocean surveillance satellites or long-range reconnaissance aircraft.
The officer known as Staff Officer Zhu acted quickly.
In less than half an hour, he returned to the measurement and control hall from outside.
"Reporting to the commander, during the time when the satellite took the photo, the USS Kitty Hawk had just left Manila and was on its way back to the country for inspection and maintenance."
"Based on the analysis of the sailing route and direction, it is very likely that what we photographed is this one!"
