Chapter 1630 [The biggest benefit of bringing along the French and Italian idiots]

However, this is a case of good luck. Whether you can find signs of life in the stratum where the Mars landing site is located still requires a certain amount of luck.

However, Fang Hong is not in a hurry. As long as it is confirmed that there is life on Mars, he can always find irrefutable proof. If he didn't find it this time, he will find it next time. It's just a matter of time.

Moreover, Mars is relatively close to the Earth and not as far away as Saturn.

With a launch window of more than two years, it can be reached in half a year's journey, and the time cost of traveling to Mars is several times less than that of Saturn.

Fang Hong will also spare no effort to spend money to support a series of follow-up plans for the Mars exploration project, proving the importance of the existence of extraterrestrial life to the value of building a "community with a shared future for mankind." Needless to say.

…

Fang Hong stayed here for about half a day before leaving, and he had an intuitive understanding of the progress of the entire project.

On the way home, on the private plane.

Yu Qiu, who is the housekeeper of Jingxinju Villa and is responsible for the Natural Science Foundation, said with doubts in his heart: "I still don't understand why the Mars exploration project needs to cooperate with the French and Italians. As far as I know, , the French people are more of a burden in this project, even if they are just trying to make soy sauce, they will not be eliminated..."

That's right, this time the "Mars Express" plan also brought along Ouzhou Xiaofa and Itali, because these two guys have the attribute of a big speaker, and it is precisely because of this attribute that they brought these two soy sauce characters. .

When Fang Hong heard her words, he immediately laughed and said: "It's not just a soy sauce role. I brought these two guys with me without expecting them to make much technical contribution. As long as they don't cause any trouble, that's all."

Yu Qiu became even more puzzled after hearing this, and she thought that bringing Xiaofa with her was adding to the problem.

Fang Hong immediately turned his head and looked at him: "Just imagine, if we really discover life on this Mars mission, the Grasshoppers and Italians will definitely be more excited than us, and they will be eager to blast a loudspeaker to The biggest purpose of announcing this explosive news to the whole world is to serve as a witness, so that they won’t be accused of talking nonsense.”

As soon as these words came out, Yu Qiu couldn't help but asked curiously: "What do you mean by this? You seem to be very sure that there will be alien life on Mars?"

Fang Hong's smile remained: "My intuition tells me that there will be!"

Yu Qiu said angrily: "I've been making trouble for a long time and I'm still fooling..."

Fang Hong laughed and said, "Otherwise? I can't fly directly to Mars, but don't believe my intuition. It's always very accurate. How about we make a bet?"

Hearing this, Yu Qiu rolled her eyes at him, but the next second, she turned to smile and said: "I think I have a good chance of winning, so I took the gamble!"

Fang Hong said calmly: "Then if you lose, come here and get a shot. It's only a matter of time."

Therefore, this shot was realized in advance.

…

The process for the Mars exploration mission formulated seven or eight years ago is a three-step strategy. The first step is to launch the "Tianwen-1" probe to complete the mission that the earlier "Yinghuo-1" failed to complete.

Then there is the second step of the probe landing on Mars, that is, the "Tianwen-2" probe is sent to Mars and lands on the surface of Mars. "Tianwen-2" will carry a Mars rover "Zhurong-1". Among its tasks A key indicator is to excavate the soil near the landing site. The "Zhurong-1" Mars rover prepared 52 sample tubes. These tubes are machine-made from special alloys and are all assembled in a clean room.

According to this plan, "Zhurong 1" has the ability to collect samples, but it does not have the ability to directly study and analyze these samples on Mars. The samples need to be sent back to Earth.

It is not easy to send a probe to the surface of Mars, and it is even more difficult to retrieve samples. The whole process is long and complicated.

After "Zhurong-1" completes the sample collection work, the tubes will be thrown directly on the ground along the way, but each tube is marked, because "Zhurong-1" has other detection tasks, and it costs a huge amount of money to send it Coming to Mars isn't just about digging dirt, it's just part of its job.

Although sandstorms often blow up on Mars, the Martian atmosphere is thin, so it won't be a big problem to just throw the sample tubes on the ground and leave them alone. And with a full 52 tubes prepared, it is impossible to find none.

After the sample collection is completed, the Earth will prepare for the launch of the sample recovery lander, which will be launched from the Earth and arrive at Mars in about half a year through the Earth-fire Transfer Orbit.

The lander is equipped with two very important devices. One is the "Zhurong-2" Mars rover responsible for sampling. Its mission is to find the sample tubes collected by "Zhurong-1" and then recover these tubes and send them to the lander. .

Another device is the launcher sent to the surface of Mars through the lander. It is a small rocket that can meet the escape velocity of Mars and enter the space orbit. There is a container inside to store the samples.

After the samples are loaded, the small rocket cannot return directly to the Earth because the fuel of the small rocket is only enough to send the samples to the high altitude of Mars orbit. There is no additional fuel to support it to directly send the samples back to the Earth, so a dedicated launch mission is required. Go pick it up.

After the sample return lander arrives in Mars orbit and is ready, the small rocket that has been waiting on the surface of Mars for a long time can be ignited and lifted off, sending the sample into space orbit, and the sample container will be ejected.

The long-prepared return lander in orbit will be grabbed by an external robotic arm and sent into the cabin. There is also a robotic arm in the cabin, which will place the sample container into the lander and finally close the hatch.

After this whole set of processes is completed, the sample return lander can embark on the journey back to Earth. After flying in the Hohmann transfer orbit for more than half a year and entering the Earth's gravity range, the lander finally enters the atmosphere and lands on the surface in the northern Neimeng area.

This was the original plan. The entire Mars exploration mission cycle would take nine years to get the sample, but over the years, the speed of technological development and progress of Dongda has exceeded the expectations of scientists at the time.

The rapid development of Kyushu Blue Arrow's rocket technology, as well as the orbital reef space station, etc., are developing at an astonishing speed. There are also a series of advanced technological breakthroughs and applications. In addition, the sponsor is also very anxious, and the sponsor is willing to spend money, and would rather fail and try again immediately.

Therefore, the overall outline of the mission remains unchanged, but the details are also adjusted according to the situation and local conditions.

Because of the breakthrough of heavy rocket technology of Jiuzhou Blue Arrow, the significant increase in payload, including the advancement of the orbital reef space station, the "Tianwen-1" of this Mars exploration mission directly took the "Zhurong" away, thus directly saving a launch window cycle to send the "Zhurong" Mars rover alone.

According to the adjusted new process, the "Tianwen-1" flying to Mars this time will directly complete the "orbit, land, and patrol" three-in-one mission at one time, that is, complete the three major mission goals of "changing people, landing, and patrolling" on Mars.

This feat is also the first in the world. If the mission is successful, the Eastern power will become the first country in the world to explore Mars and complete the soft landing mission. When the entire mission plan is completed, it will become the first country in the world to bring sudden samples of Mars back to Earth.

The "Zhurong" Mars rover, which has landed successfully, will collect soil samples from the Martian strata. The plan for the sample return lander to return to Earth remains unchanged, but there will be some fine-tuning at the end.

That is, after the return lander enters the Earth's orbit, it will not directly dock into the atmosphere, but will first enter the orbital reef space station in orbit. At that time, the orbital reef space station has already been put into operation, and as a permanent space station, it will expand the scale of the space station while it is in operation.

After the samples are sent to the space station, the astronauts will take out part of them and store them on the space station, and the other part will be sent back to the surface of the Earth later.

The purpose of doing this is not only to conduct research directly on the orbital reef space station in the future, but also a backup plan. In case of any accident during the return to the atmosphere, the sample will be destroyed in the last leg, which will be a failure.

In this way, even if this worst-case scenario occurs, a sample is still stored on the space station.

... (End of this chapter)