Chapter 1097 Preparing to Return

When O'Keefe told everyone about his plan, everyone else had basically the same idea -

Crazy?

The space regulatory agencies of various countries, no matter how "civilian" they appear on the surface and in organization, actually have close ties with their own military.

After all, there is often only a thin layer of paper between launch vehicles and ballistic missiles.

NASA is no exception.

In fact, the United States' space tracking and control network is jointly built by NASA and the Department of Defense.

Therefore, it was not difficult for O'Keefe to mobilize a reconnaissance plane.

Even the reconnaissance requests he sent out might have a higher priority than those of military units at the theater level.

But the problem is...

The object of reconnaissance was really too wild.

The predecessor of Dongfeng Aerospace City was the former 20th Base of the General Armament Department, which was also China’s first missile test base.

But later, with the continuous improvement of technology, there was no longer a need for a fixed place to test missile performance.

That’s why it was changed into a place dedicated to serving manned space projects.

Sending a reconnaissance plane to scout such a place always seems to give people a feeling of entering a nostalgic server.

If the history of USAF's aerial reconnaissance were written into a book, it would probably be thicker than the history of the United States itself.

Of course, there are some brilliant parts among them.

But reconnaissance on China is definitely the most difficult chapter.

From the P2V "Neptune" to the U2 "Dragon Lady", and then to the BQM-34 "Firebee"...

In short, a lot of new equipment was given away.

Although most of the missions are not carried out by Americans themselves, it is definitely not a proud thing.

Besides, it’s the 21st century.

At least on the surface, peace and development have become the themes of the times.

It is impossible for the higher-ups to agree to our request to enter China's interior to cause trouble.

Looking at the strange looks from people around him, O'Keefe realized that his previous statement was somewhat ambiguous.

"There is no need to scout their entire western region... just include the tracking and control station in Shule in the surveillance range."

The atmosphere in the conference room eased a little.

After all, the Shule region is only about 300 kilometers away from Kyrgyzstan.

Such reconnaissance can be carried out entirely outside the country.

However, the problem has not completely disappeared.

As subordinates, others may not be able to directly object at this time.

But Malville's qualifications at NASA were already very high, and as a consultant, he was considered an old friend and personal consultant of O'Keefe, so he needed to pull back at this time:

"Xiao, even if we don't enter the other side's airspace, the act of reconnaissance itself is a very strong signal of provocation... At present, our relationship with China is still relatively relaxed, you see..."

In this timeline, there has been no direct conflict between the two sides since 1996, especially in the few years at the turn of the century, which was a smooth transition. Therefore, what Malville called "de-escalation" was not an exaggeration.

Moreover, this sentence has a deeper meaning.

Even when we launched a massive military offensive into Central Asia, we received support from China and even used their airports to transport supplies and personnel.

Now, he is using this place as a base to attack others. Although it is not impossible, he should at least act cleanly...

O'Keefe heard this and thought for a while.

But in the end, I still choose to stick to my opinion:

"In any case, relay communications must eventually be fed back to the ground station, and even if the directional accuracy of such signals is high, they will only appear on the ground within a radius of hundreds of kilometers."

"We sent a reconnaissance plane over there, keeping silent the whole time, using passive reconnaissance means to only receive but not send. After capturing their signals, we withdrew. Even if we can't decode their specific communication content, we can at least use the signal characteristics to identify which satellite is transmitting signals to the ground."

That's right.

In the eyes of Americans, conducting passive reconnaissance rather than active reconnaissance is already a display of the utmost sincerity.

Of course, objectively speaking, this is indeed a perfect edge ball.

Even if the whole world knew what a reconnaissance plane hovering near the border was planning to do, the airspace over Ivhan and Kyrgyzstan was completely open to the US Air Force and there was nothing wrong with it.

On the contrary, it is not convenient for China to interfere.

It is not even possible to drive them away by means of escort interference like in the southeast direction.

Therefore, Malville said nothing more.

In this way, O'Keefe's request was quickly conveyed to the Central Command responsible for the affairs of the Central and Far East regions through special channels.

But the latter was totally unprepared for this.

Shenzhou V was launched at 15 a.m. Beijing time on the 9th, and the mission lasted only 21 hours in total.

That is to say, it will land around 16:5 am on the 40th.

And now it is the evening of the 15th in Beijing time.

They only have less than 8 hours left to operate.

However, it must be admitted that at the beginning of the 21st century, the efficiency demonstrated by the US military was still quite good.

After receiving the mission request, John Abizaid, commander of the Central Command, quickly pulled himself out of the already chaotic military affairs and allocated resources that met O'Keefe's requirements...

……

Later in the day.

Dongfeng Aerospace City.

The leaders who had watched the launch mission here in the morning had already left, so Chang Haonan also had the opportunity to sit in the guest seats and enjoy the best view in the entire command and control hall.

About an hour ago, he and dozens of other comrades here watched the entire 48-minute conversation between heaven and earth.

About ten minutes longer than what TV viewers saw.

It can be said that the effect far exceeded expectations.

In addition, the spacecraft has entered the second half of its eighth orbit around the earth and is about to begin the ninth cycle.

This is when the operation is most stable.

Therefore, the atmosphere in the entire hall was much more relaxed than in the past ten hours.

Especially for Chang Haonan.

Although the communication verification task is not over yet, the longest connection has been completed, and the rest is just routine finishing work.

Of course, the excitement of being directly involved in the manned space program has not yet passed, so it is impossible for me to sleep.

At this time, Shen Junrong, wearing a light blue work suit, also came quickly from not far away.

You can't tell at all that he is a 24-year-old comrade who has been awake for almost hours.

"Comrade Haonan, it's done!"

He couldn't suppress his grin. Before he could even finish moving his feet, he had already placed the several pages of reports in front of Chang Haonan:

"The highest communication delay is 327ms, the average communication capacity is 6.2Mbps, and the maximum communication capacity is 12.7Mbps... It is indeed much better than the performance of geostationary orbit satellites..."

The latter had received the results from Tanzhou just when the previous communication ended, so he did not look at the specific content of the report in front of him. He just adjusted his posture slightly and leaned back on the backrest:

"That's not the case... After all, the communication coverage is limited, and the satellite attitude has been specially adjusted for a single target..."

“If we want to achieve this effect for any spacecraft, we will probably need at least 40-60 satellites, and the number of channels and antenna coverage of each satellite will have to be multiplied… It’s a long way to go!”

Although his words were very modest, judging from his tone and expression, he was obviously satisfied with the result.

Of course Shen Junrong could see this, so he sat down beside him happily:

"Don't make up your mind. This test is not only close to perfection in terms of technology, but also has a huge impact in terms of publicity... Although the scale of 40-60 satellites is definitely a dream, based on today's performance, it will definitely not be a problem to arrange a group of scientific exploration and technical test satellites for you..."

"I guess this was also your original goal, Comrade Haonan?"

I can only say that he is worthy of being an old expert.

That’s a pretty good guess.

The Qingluan satellite cluster is an attempt to pave the way for the Practice series of satellites.

However, Chang Haonan was no longer a rookie. He was not embarrassed at all when his thoughts were exposed. Instead, he calmly changed the subject:

"It's only been less than an hour since the show aired, and Mr. Shen already knows the impact?"

"Of course!"

Unexpectedly, facing this half-joking topic, Shen Junrong was very serious:

"Do you know how many foreign cooperation projects have been ruined by the Americans, either directly threatening or secretly hindering our country's aerospace industry?"

"It's because after the Cold War, the world has been highly dependent on the United States for aerospace infrastructure. Others are worried that cooperating with us will cut off their support... The live broadcast you just proposed may very well help the entire industry break through the blockade!"

Regarding aerospace, Chang Haonan probably knows some well-known events, but after all, it is not his main field and his understanding is not as detailed as that of aviation.

But according to Shen Junrong, they have also suffered from the Western blockade for a long time.

Although there have been fewer specific technical restrictions in recent years, the situation at the project level has obviously not improved much.

So he followed the previous conversation and asked the other party to continue talking about what had happened before.

In such a peaceful and harmonious atmosphere, time quickly came to the second half of the night.

According to the plan, Shenzhou V is about to enter the return preparation stage, so everyone in the control hall also began to get busy.

But at this moment, someone suddenly reported a breaking news -

About 400 kilometers west of the Shule Tracking and Control Station, an unidentified flying vehicle was discovered operating at an altitude of 1.7 meters!