Chapter 1457 Prism Project

As the second most important project of the US Air Force, the X51A project has been attracting attention and even competition from many parties since its official launch.

As for the various regular or surprise audit and verification operations, they are a traditional skill that is carried out every year.

Although the National Security Agency that suddenly appeared this time is indeed a new role, there have been cases in the past where the GAO and the FBI have jointly carried out operations.

So at the beginning, Shapur Klinger didn't take it too seriously. He even pulled several heads of key subsystems to another conference room and assigned their respective tasks in advance to avoid being at a loss when they had to return to work a week later.

It was not until all the work was finished and he was about to go back to his office to pack up, but he found that even the office area had been blocked off, that he finally realized that something was wrong.

In the past, whether checking accounts or checking safety, they would basically just go through the motions in any experimental area, but there has never been such a large-scale event.

Especially for offices at the supervisory level like theirs, which are private areas in principle, even routine inspections with advance notice are rarely involved, let alone such a rough style of behavior.

He wanted to approach the man in a firm manner to communicate, but suddenly, for no reason, he felt uneasy in his heart.

Just at this moment, his assistant Charlie Brinker also hurried over from the other side of the corridor, his tone full of anxiety:

"In my office and in the offices of several other colleagues..."

Halfway through his words, he saw an expressionless man in black standing at the other party's office door. It was obvious that he had encountered the same situation as them, so he stopped talking:

"This……"

"Don't worry about it yet. This should be part of the information security risk check."

Collinger waved his hand, signaling Brink to stay calm:

"I will communicate with the person in charge of the other party and ask them to be careful not to mess up the documents and items in the office during the inspection..."

This answer seemed reasonable, but it surprised the latter.

As a senior engineer and project manager who has worked at Boeing for decades, although Collinger is a technical staff member and usually has a kind face, he is definitely not an easy person to deal with.

The NSA name is a powerful sword for ordinary small and medium-sized companies, but for a behemoth like Boeing, it is just an ordinary organization with slightly greater authority.

Based on Brink's understanding of his leader, if it were under normal circumstances, the other party's first reaction would definitely be to run to the board of directors to complain and ask them to remove the blockade and inspection of the office area.

No matter what the final result is, at least you must appear strong enough to avoid being easily taken advantage of.

But today is clearly not normal.

"Manager, this safety inspection..."

He spoke tentatively:

“Are there really any problems within our organization?”

Ke Lingjie was stunned for a moment, then denied it with a flickering look in his eyes:

"How is it possible... I guess the leaders were scared by the hypersonic weapons that China suddenly displayed a few days ago. On the one hand, they think our progress is too slow, and on the other hand, they want to give an explanation to Congress and the Accountability Office, so they made such a big fuss..."

After he finished speaking, he immediately changed the subject:

"That's just in time. While they're checking the project, I can take a good rest for a few days and sort out my ideas for the third test launch. If you can't stay idle, you can optimize the detection and control logic of the shock wave system. I think the current algorithm that uses the ratio of the isolation section pressure to the reference pressure to determine the shock wave position is a bit sloppy."

Sure enough, this move was effective immediately.

Brinker's attention was drawn to the work almost immediately:

"Do you think the current positioning accuracy of the shock wave system is not enough?"

Ke Lingjie nodded:

"Although it is theoretically possible to meet the standard, the margin that needs to be left is too large, which may also affect the success rate of subsequent tests... The main reason is that the pressure reference value involves too many uncertain factors, resulting in it being a design constant that is completely defined by humans and is greatly affected by the specific external conditions during the flight test."

When he said this, even he became serious again:

"Each set of reference values ​​requires a large amount of experimental data, and a high-fidelity isolated segment simulation is also required for these selected reference values. Currently, we can only determine about 6-8 sets of data in a relatively simple environment, and then passively wait for the flight conditions over the target range to reach a certain range... As for more complex environments, a higher-fidelity ultra-high-speed wind tunnel is required, and this happens to be our biggest shortcoming..."

"..."

After some communication, Brink was finally sent away.

However, Collinger's expression did not relax at all.

When he mentioned the "ultra-high-speed wind tunnel" just now, he instinctively thought of the TH-D high-enthalpy shock wave wind tunnel at the Aachen University of Technology.

I was originally considering whether I could borrow the other party’s resources through personal connections.

But soon another more serious problem became apparent.

I also figured out where that feeling of uneasiness just now came from.

In order to find out the root cause of the failure of the first test as soon as possible, he had given the operating parameters of the X51A and SJX61-1 engines to his old friend Karl-Heinz Brinkmann.

Although it did work in the end and it was discovered that the entire power system provided by Pratt & Whitney had cut corners in the design phase, from an operational perspective alone, it was a clear violation of regulations and leaks.

Considering that Aachen University of Technology once had close cooperation with the Institute of Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, if this matter were to be discovered, I would definitely not be able to clear myself even if I jumped into the Yellow River...

Thinking of this, Ke Lingjie quickly began to recall the details of the operation that year.

Finally, I was basically sure that, at least for me, there should be no loopholes left.

The only hidden danger should be on Brinkman's side.

If you find data files related to X51A in the background of the TH-D wind tunnel, you can find yourself by following this line.

Although the other party had promised that all the operation logs had been deleted, it would still be better to confirm it again...

He reached his right hand into his pocket, ready to make a call.

But he quickly put the phone back.

"It's already night in Europe, so let's contact him later..."

Collinger thought so.

……

In fact, Collinger was not the only one who panicked about the security check.

Representatives from Pratt & Whitney, which is responsible for the development of scramjet engines, the MIT research team responsible for the development of booster rockets, and even some middle and senior managers from Boeing...

It can be said that except for Colin's core project team, everyone has benefited a lot from it to varying degrees.

This kind of thing is like if you don't weigh 4 taels on the scale, you won't even weigh 1,000 kilograms if you weigh it.

Even if we have made arrangements, it is impossible to completely ignore the NSA's sudden attack.

Something has to be done.

Therefore, based on past experience, they almost unanimously chose the same strategy:

Divert trouble away and muddy the waters.

If everyone does it, it is the same as if no one does it.

No matter how bold your inspection team is, do you dare to bring down everyone from top to bottom?

If this is really the case, the inspection team itself will definitely be the ones who get screwed in the end.

Therefore, the NSA entered Boeing Group in the morning, and before lunch, it had already received more than a dozen anonymous reports from different sources. Timothy Joyce, the head of the operation, was so shocked that he naturally expressed the same feeling as Collinger a few years ago:

"How can we develop hypersonic weapons with a bunch of insects like this?"

But despite his feelings, he still had to do his job, so he had to sort out the materials and hand them over to his assistant Ken Berry.

The latter looked at the hot potato in front of him and didn't dare to answer the call:

"Investigate these? Me?"

The range of people involved in these materials has completely exceeded any expectations before they set out on this trip. It can be said that whoever dares to investigate will die.

Joyce also knew this situation and was not prepared to force it:

"Our mission this time is to investigate Tonghua's suspicion. These are all acts of misuse of funds and dereliction of duty. You just need to record them and hand them over to the director. There is no need to investigate further."

In fact, looking at the materials in front of him, he already roughly understood why the development progress of X51A was delayed behind schedule.

But I have a mission to accomplish and I must find out the results that my superiors want to see.

Berry finally breathed a sigh of relief, took the stack of papers in his hands tremblingly, and asked:

"If you don't plan to investigate, why bother..."

Joyce sighed:

"Looking at this situation, it's useless for us to work hard here... Why not save some trouble and use these things as evidence to apply to the higher-ups to initiate a monitoring plan for all sensitive personnel? Maybe we can find something useful."