Chapter 1085: The East Wind Overwhelms the West Wind

The request made by Fan Jimin was not excessive.

After all, the core airborne equipment, especially the radar system, was provided by China.

Including the current cooperation between Elta Electronic Industries and General Dynamics, Gulfstream will deliver four G4 platforms and provide necessary technical support, but the entire modification process will be completed entirely by the former in David.

Coupled with the previous preparation, Casore could not think of any reason to refuse.

But if we just give in like this, the situation would not look good.

Therefore, he also put forward his own demands in return.

That is, after the prototype testing phase is completed, the mass production phase must be carried out on Dassault's final assembly line.

And this happens to be one of the conditions that the Chinese side has determined in advance and can accept.

In fact, Chang Haonan first thought of cooperating with the French. In addition to being familiar with the Falcon 8Z platform, another important consideration was that the two sides had different core pursuits in this project.

China already has its main model, the KJ-2000, which meets the requirements in terms of cost and performance and is basically fully autonomous and controllable. The remaining shortcomings can also be made up by the KJ-200. There is no urgent need to equip a light early warning aircraft with a long range but limited performance.

Therefore, the current main goal is to verify the entire optically controlled phased array technology route.

As long as the testing process is completed in China and all the data can be obtained, it will be fine.

The rest are secondary purposes.

Dassault is the exact opposite.

They are really planning to use this thing to bid for the French Air Force's new generation early warning aircraft project, and then use this name to enter the international market.

Although its apparent size is far smaller than that of the E3F, its cost is almost four times that of the EF, and thanks to its latecomer advantage, its performance has not been left behind by any generational gap.

Moreover, the combat pressure faced by the French army is relatively small, and if the range is sufficient, they may not necessarily need difficult-to-serve strategic early warning aircraft.

And since our own air force is the target user, there will naturally be plenty of time to acquire data later and there is no need to rush at this moment.

The most important thing is to keep the entire project running smoothly.

After all, E3F is an existing piece of equipment, and although upgrading it is very expensive, there is basically no risk.

The window of time left for you to get a brand new model is not long.

If there are one or two major delays during the trial phase, then you’ll basically miss out.

Secondly, it is necessary to ensure that final assembly and most of the production work are completed within the country.

This is a very important bargaining chip at the equipment level.

So, the two sides hit it off immediately.

Of course, this is just the intention level.

No one present had the authority to make the final decision on the spot.

If we want to formally sign the contract, we have to wait until everyone goes back and reports the situation to the decision-making level.

Moreover, the "Gaoming" project is said to be a bilateral cooperation, but the two sides here refer to two countries.

Specifically, there are three main participants in China alone, and in addition to Dassault, France also needs the participation of Thales Group to complete the integration of data links and command systems.

Fortunately, Chang Haonan had already made some arrangements for this project.

It took Liu Yongquan and Liang Shaoxiu just a few days to complete most of the procedures on their side.

However, the progress at the Electronic Technology Group was a little slower.

Because Fan Jimin appeared at the previous meeting only as a temporary substitute.

Guo Lin, who was actually in charge, was dealing with a more urgent project at this time...

……

Beijing, National Space Administration.

The large-scale reorganization from the Science and Technology Commission to the Industry and Construction Commission a few months ago did not seem to have much impact here.

Compared with the beginning of the year, the only noticeable change is the removal of the "System Engineering Department I" sign, which was rarely used, and everything else remains the same.

Even the main leaders were retained.

Therefore, when Guo Lin walked in here, for a moment he even felt as if he had returned to half a year ago...

"Lao Guo!"

However, a voice soon woke him up from his thoughts.

Guo Lin looked in the direction of the voice and saw Zhang Weiyong, dressed in casual clothes, jogging down the stairs not far away.

Lin Senming followed behind him.

So he quickly strode forward to meet him.

In fact, there was no direct overlap between the three people's businesses, but last year Chang Haonan put part of the test of the relay communication system on the KJ-2000. Later, he became a hands-off boss and even involved Guo Lin and the th Institute of China Electronics Technology Group Corporation.

Of course, the latter also enjoys it.

"You guys look like... nothing has changed?"

As Guo Lin went upstairs, he casually found a topic to talk about.

It's not just for small talk.

It is also to divert attention to relieve some of the tension in my heart...

"Well... our unit has been a non-military organization since its establishment. We don't have to go through the same things as other brother departments."

Zhang Weiyong explained:

"Besides, this is the most critical juncture of the 921 Project. Business stability is absolutely the top priority. No matter what, it is impossible for our supervisory unit to make large-scale organizational structure adjustments..."

"..."

I originally wanted to talk about something else to relax, but in the end, we ended up talking about manned space engineering.

Instead, it made Guo Lin even more anxious.

Such obvious emotional changes naturally did not escape Zhang Weiyong's eyes.

"I'm talking to Lao Guo."

He deliberately added a hint of joking in his tone:

"You must have handled quite a few projects. Today's situation is just normal. You don't need to react so strongly, right?"

"That's different..."

Guo Lin rubbed his swollen forehead as he spoke, but for a moment he didn't know how to describe his inner feelings.

Manned space flight is not an ordinary project after all.

It cannot be judged according to general levels.

Seeing this, Lin Senming, who had been silent, suddenly interrupted:

"Lao Guo has spent half his life figuring out how to send people to heaven, and now he suddenly has to send people to heaven safely... I guess he has a burden on his mind..."

This sentence almost made Zhang Weiyong unable to hold back his tears.

Of course, this is just a casual remark.

In fact, the part of Project 921 involving sending people into space was completed as early as early 2001.

From Shenzhou II to Shenzhou IV, they are all full-state verification spacecraft with full manned capabilities.

The test was repeated three times to ensure that everything was as foolproof as possible.

As for the part they are responsible for, it has nothing to do with sending people to heaven.

It would be better to say that it is just a matter of leveraging the strength of Project 921 to maximize the use of resources.

However, this sudden joke made Guo Lin feel a lot better.

Just at this time, the three of them arrived outside the director's office.

The door was not closed, obviously someone was waiting for them.

It was not until he walked in that Guo Lin noticed that in addition to Luan Wenjie himself sitting behind the desk, there was another person sitting on the sofa next to him.

He quickly recognized that the other person was Shen Junrong, deputy commander-in-chief of the manned space program and head of the measurement, control and communication system.

"sit down."

Luan Wenjie put down the documents in his hand and gestured towards the single row of sofas on the other side:

"I heard from Comrade Zhang Weiyong that you plan to launch a satellite constellation consisting of four small satellites to solve the problem of real-time communication between spacecraft and the ground?"

Zhang Weiyong and Lin Senming were both staff members of the Space Administration, so this question was obviously mainly directed to Guo Lin.

"It's not even close to being solved..."

The latter took a deep breath and replied:

"However, using four satellites with communication relay functions working in MEO orbit to form a decentralized communication network can effectively expand the time window for high-throughput data transmission between spacecraft and the ground."

"For example, for a target spacecraft operating in a typical low-Earth orbit, it can be guaranteed that the round-trip delay with the ground is less than 50ms and the available capacity is not less than 350Mbps during at most 15% of the operating time..."

"..."

In fact, this relay satellite constellation was originally designed to serve reconnaissance satellites like Ocean No. 1, which operate in sun-synchronous orbits.

However, the span of directly implementing the practical series in one step is indeed a bit too large, and the development cycle and investment cost are also relatively high.

Therefore, Chang Haonan and Zhang Weiyong finally decided to settle for the second best and first launch four small satellites weighing hundreds of kilograms to verify the feasibility at the technical level.

Just like that, the test window happened to coincide with the Shenzhou V...

On the other hand, after hearing Guo Lin's targeted examples, Shen Junrong's originally calm face couldn't help but show some ripples.

The manned space program itself already has a set of measurement, control and communication systems that include domestic and overseas ground stations and ocean-going survey ships to ensure that the operating status of the spacecraft during key stages is under control from the ground.

However, due to the limitations of hardware conditions during research and development, this system only guarantees the most basic functions, with the focus on transmitting control signals and feedback signals.

Secondly, the coverage of ground tracking and control stations is very limited and irregular.

If we want to achieve continuous communication over a longer period of time, we can only wait until the spacecraft passes over the mainland.

Specifically for Shenzhou V, it is about 10% of the time in orbit.

Calculated based on the one and a half hour orbital cycle of the spacecraft, this is approximately 10 minutes.

Apart from some necessary work communications that cannot be fully disclosed, there is very little space left.

Only a few typical segments can be arranged, such as displaying the national flag and talking with family members.

In other words, it's not very good.

Of course, as China's first manned space mission, even if there are only individual symbolic images, they have immeasurable influence.

But if, as Guo Lin said, this figure can be increased to 50%.

Even if it's just 50% of one lap.

This also means that the conditions inside the spacecraft can be directly observed for 40 consecutive minutes in an hour and a half.

Whether in terms of technical verification or publicity, it can be regarded as a qualitative leap.

Especially at this time point in 2003.

A successful manned space mission has a very special meaning for China and even the whole world...