Chapter 1281 Are you interested in participating in a confidential project?

Chapter 1281 Are you interested in participating in a confidential project?

"Academician Chang..."

Seeing that the other party had already calculated the periodic shape and maintenance energy consumption of the quasi-periodic orbit at point L4, Zhou Pingjian gradually showed a somewhat awkward expression on his face:

"Is this the 'immature idea' you just mentioned?"

If these things were given to him to calculate, he would certainly be able to figure them out.

But to achieve such ease, one must have put in a lot of effort.

It was definitely not a spur-of-the-moment idea.

Chang Haonan lowered his head and glanced at the A4 paper that had been almost filled up without him noticing, and felt that this description was a bit inappropriate.

"It was indeed immature at first... it was just an idea that came to me unintentionally."

He threw the pen aside and said:

"Later, when I had nothing to do, I took it out and calculated it. Now it may be a little more perfect..."

"..."

Zhou Pingjian put his hand on his forehead, but finally decided not to dwell on the details of the wording:

"In that case, there must be more details, right?"

As he spoke, he also took out a notebook from his trouser pocket.

But faced with this question, Chang Haonan hesitated.

More details, of course, there are.

But if "building a space station at the L4 point" itself can be regarded as part of farsightedness, then the following part is really a bit fanciful.

But in the end, he continued:

"According to current research on survival in microgravity, the human body can be in an environment with a gravity level of about 0.3g for a long time without serious problems. So according to my idea, this base should be a ring with a radius of about 300 meters, rotating around the center at a speed of 0.95r/min. Of course, if the survival level is better, the rotation speed can be appropriately increased, and the required rotation radius can be reduced accordingly..."

"The maximum Earth shadow time at point L4 is only 2.4 hours, the Moon shadow time is negligible, and only very little energy consumption is required to maintain orbital stability. Therefore, apart from the emergency power system, it can be completely dependent on electricity under normal circumstances. There is no need to transport a large amount of propellant from the Earth. It only needs to provide food and water for human survival..."

"..."

Obviously, many elements of this concept are not very realistic given current human technology.

For example, a ring-shaped spacecraft with a radius of 300 meters is itself an unimaginable behemoth.

But Zhou Pingjian did not interrupt Chang Haonan's description, but made special notes after each section.

For example, "mature technology", "still under research" or "needs verification" and so on.

Obviously, they are really considering the feasibility of this plan.

It was not until the minibus drove into the gate of the launch site and swayed to a stop that the two people who had been chatting happily finally reacted and had to stop for a while.

……

Although the name of this sounding rocket launch site in Qiong Province sounds somewhat similar to the three major satellite launch centers, it is not on the same level in terms of hardware level or administrative level.

The person in charge of the launch site is Xu Pengfei, who is not even a full-time aerospace technician. Instead, he is the director of the Rocket and Balloon Sounding Technology Laboratory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

It can be said that before today, I never thought in my life that I would receive such high attention one day.

"Academician Chang, Chief Engineer Zhou."

Xu Pengfei, who had been waiting for a long time, walked quickly forward and greeted the two big guys who had just got off the car.

Perhaps because he was not well prepared, he seemed quite nervous.

"Comrade Pengfei, don't be too stressed..."

Zhou Pingjian had seen this kind of situation many times, and he immediately patted the other person on the shoulder:

"I am here today with Academician Chang, just to learn from you some details about the near-space environment research..."

"..."

Xu Pengfei's confidentiality level is not low, but his business scope has nothing to do with hypersonic research. In addition, today we only have a preliminary understanding, so Chang Haonan did not fully clarify his purpose.

It just means that future manned space research will require physical and chemical factors such as the atmospheric structure and aerodynamic conditions within the altitude range of 50-150km, and may require high-density suborbital launches at low latitudes.

Hearing that such an important project was actually related to his unpopular unit, Xu Pengfei couldn't help but feel a sense of pleasure of "finally becoming a mother-in-law" and almost laughed out loud in front of everyone.

Fortunately, at the critical moment, reason prevailed.

"Academician Chang, our current launch frequency is only about 2-3 times per quarter. There is not much preparation required for suborbital launches, so there is still a lot of room for saturation in terms of launch capability..."

As he led Chang Haonan and others to the somewhat crude launch pad, he introduced:

"However, existing sounding rockets are mainly used to launch small meteorological detection equipment. In terms of performance trade-offs, they almost entirely pursue launch height without considering speed. Moreover, they are basically uncontrolled or low-controlled launches. I am afraid that they are difficult to be used for research on dynamics-related problems."

"You don't have to worry about this."

Chang Haonan waved his hand and said:

"The new rocket-powered flight test platform is already under development. It can fully meet the requirements of large-scale test aircraft, power systems, single aircraft, structures, materials, algorithms, etc. All you need to do at your launch site is to double the launch mission or even increase it by an order of magnitude."

Xu Pengfei did not interrupt, but just widened his eyes slightly.

Although he had seen a suborbital rocket launched every week or even every 2-3 days when he was visiting foreign countries before, he couldn't help but feel a little unreal when it came to himself now.

However, Chang Haonan did not give him much time to build up his emotions.

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"In addition, you must not stop your main job, which is to study high-altitude meteorology... Due to the special requirements of the project, we need to conduct a relatively complete atmospheric modeling of the surrounding space, especially at altitudes above 60km. This is also one of your key tasks in the second half of the year..."

"More than 60 km..."

Xu Pengfei's main business is actually meteorological research, so after hearing this altitude range, he quickly realized what Chang Haonan was focusing on -

The tops of the stratosphere and mesosphere, which are divided according to the thermal structure, are 50km and 85km respectively, while the tops of the mean layer and transition layer, which are divided according to the component characteristics, are 85km and 100km respectively.

Only the dividing line between the neutral layer and the ionosphere is around 60km.

"You want to study the ionization properties of the near-space atmosphere?"

Chang Haonan glanced at Xu Pengfei, who was walking beside him, with a look of surprise and approval:

"Director Xu's guess was very accurate..."

This is of course the top priority for the next step of research.

In the altitude range of 60km-150km, due to the effect of solar radiation, the atoms and molecules in the atmosphere are ionized, generating a large number of free electrons and positive ions. Therefore, the characteristics of the plasma sheath generated when an aircraft flies at high speed are different from those of the neutral atmosphere at a lower altitude.

Of course, in most cases, since communication in the blackout is not expected, this slight difference has little impact.

But whether it is a disposable hypersonic weapon or a reusable hypersonic flight vehicle in the future, if it wants to operate in a range of about 100km for a long time, it must ensure the smooth transmission of communication and navigation signals.

The black barrier communication technology he had previously developed for hypersonic missiles essentially used actively ejected ion streams to weaken and modify the plasma sheath wrapped around the outside of the flying body, allowing electromagnetic waves of specific bands, specific phases and incident angles to pass through the shielding layer.

Therefore, it is highly dependent on the understanding of the ionization characteristics of the atmospheric environment.

Xu Pengfei was a little embarrassed and adjusted his hair to cover the already thinning part on top of his head:

"The coupling between the ionosphere and the near-space atmosphere has been a hot topic in recent years, so we have accumulated some relevant data...but the relevant physical mechanisms are still unclear, so at present, both at home and abroad, we are still at the stage of empirical estimation."

Having said this, he paused for a moment, and after confirming that Chang Haonan and Zhou Pingjian's expressions had not changed, he continued:

"But... if you are not planning to study the air ionization process itself, but want to solve the ionization problem, or solve other problems through ionization, then you can arrange the test at night... because we found that after about midnight, the extra electron density in the D region will disappear, and the ionization characteristics are almost exactly the same as the neutral layer below 0km..."

"..."

An unexpected surprise.

An absolute surprise.

For Chang Haonan, compared with the unprepossessing Director Xu Pengfei himself, the other gains from this trip seemed less important.

"Director Xu."

Chang Haonan suddenly stopped and turned to the other party with a serious expression:

"I have a confidential project here...it may take a long time. I wonder if you are qualified and willing to participate?"