Chapter 671 [Yes, two deep space exploration projects are advancing at the same time]

Villa living room.

Yu Qiu handed Fang Hong the document report in his hand and said: "The Mars exploration mission plan, just looking at the mission overview, it can be seen that it is extremely complicated, and it is indeed an ambitious plan."

Fang Hong took it over and opened the list, and after looking at the mission of the Saturn exploration plan, he looked at the plan of the Mars exploration mission.

The Mars mission plan formulated this time is first of all to restart the scientific goals set by the previously failed "Firefly One", namely: to detect the Martian space magnetic field, ionosphere and particle distribution and their changing laws; to detect the escape rate of Martian atmospheric ions; Detect Martian terrain, landforms and sandstorms; detect the gravity field in the equatorial region of Mars.

In addition, the engineering goals of "Yinghuo-1" include: the development technology of the Mars probe; the satellite-ground cooperation to realize the precise orbit determination and digital transmission technology of the Mars probe's 350 million kilometers; master the orbit design, launch, and interplanetary cruise of Mars exploration , Entering Mars orbit and deep space transportation and control technology.

After completing these scientific and engineering goals, the most important event is the sample return mission. The restart of the "Firefly One" exploration mission is also to serve to bring back Martian soil samples.

The new Mars exploration plan is tentatively named the "Tianwen: Mars Express" mission. The ultimate mission goal is to launch a probe to land on the surface of Mars and send Martian soil samples back to Earth.

The entire Mars mission process.

The first is to launch the "Tianwen-1" probe to complete the mission of "Yinghuo-1", followed by the Mars landing plan, 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". One of the key tasks in its exploration mission is to dig soil near the landing site on the surface of Mars. "Zhurong-1" has prepared 52 sample tubes. These The tubes are made of special alloys, all of which are designed and assembled from a sterile room.

Of course, both the "Zhurong-1" Mars rover and these sample tubes are required to be absolutely clean and pollution-free.

The impact on Mars is small, and the impact on Mars sampling is large.

Otherwise, when the sample was taken back and found to have microorganisms on it, it would cause a sensation all over the world. The earth is not the only planet with life. After the research, it was found that the sample tube was polluted by the microorganisms on the earth. Such a big oolong would not be good.

Therefore, both the "Zhurong-1" rover and the sample tubes carried must be absolutely free from pollution.

According to the current design plan, "Zhurong-1" has the ability to collect samples, but it does not have the ability to directly study these samples on Mars, nor can it directly analyze the samples with a microscope on its back.

The next task is to package these sample tubes and send them back to Earth. It is not easy to send the probe and other "express" to Mars, and it is even more difficult to retrieve the samples. This process is extremely long and complicated.

According to the current plan, after "Zhurong-1" completes the sample collection work, those sample tubes will be thrown on the ground along the way, because "Zhurong-1" has other exploration tasks, so it is not necessary to send it to the surface of Mars. It's just digging and sampling, that's just one of its jobs.

Although Mars often has sandstorms, the atmosphere of Mars is sparse, so it is not a problem to collect sample tubes and throw them on the ground.

Afterwards, the work of transporting the sample tubes will be handed over to the "Zhurong-2" that will arrive at Mars later. At this time, the "Zhurong-2" must arrive at Mars two years later, and it will inevitably be equipped with more advanced technologies, including More advanced AI automation technology and more.

After the previous "Zhurong-1" completed the sample collection work, the earth has to prepare for the launch of the sample recovery lander. It will be launched from the earth, and it will also go through the ground fire transfer orbit for seven or eight months before reaching Mars.

The lander is equipped with two very important devices. One is the "Zhurong-2" Mars rover responsible for sampling, which is responsible for finding the sample tubes collected by "Zhurong-1", and then sending these tubes to the lander.

The sampling process needs to be completed independently by "Zhurong-2", because the closest distance between Mars and the Earth has to travel at the speed of light for more than three minutes, and it is not realistic to perform remote control sampling on the Earth.

Another device is the launcher sent to the surface of Mars by the lander. It is a small rocket that can meet the escape velocity of Mars and enter space orbit. There is a container inside the small rocket, which is responsible for storing samples.

After the samples are loaded, the small rocket cannot return to Earth directly, because the fuel of the small rocket only has the ability to send samples to the high altitude of Mars orbit, and there is not so much fuel to support it to bring samples back to Earth directly.

So there is a fourth launch mission.

The first launch mission was to restart "Yinghuo-1", the second was to launch "Zhurong-1" to land on the surface of Mars for sampling, and the third was to launch the sampling "Zhurong-2" and a small rocket.

The sample return to the lander is the fourth launch mission.

In order to ensure that the return lander in the sky can accurately receive Martian soil samples, the period must be extremely complex and accurate calculations on weekends.

As the fourth launch of the sample return lander arrives above Mars orbit and is ready, the small rocket that has been waiting for a long time on the surface of Mars ignites, sends the sample into space orbit, and then throws the sample container.

After the return lander on the orbit receives the sample container, the external robotic arm pushes it into the cabin, and the robotic arm in the cabin puts the sample container into the lander, and finally closes the hatch.

After all these operations are successfully completed, the sample will return to the lander and embark on its way home. After seven or eight months of Hohman transfer orbit flight, it will be captured by the earth's gravity and reach the sky above the earth. Mi Yidai landed.

At this point, the coveted Mars samples were finally obtained. If the whole plan is successful, it will become the first country in the world to obtain Mars samples.

What is there on Mars, whether there is really life or life existed in the past? At that time, scientists will be able to answer 100% of this question that the world is concerned about after research and analysis.

According to the plan in the material report, it will take about nine years from the first launch mission in 2016 to the fourth launch mission to bring back the samples, that is, the samples will not be available until 2025, which is still within the entire mission. Under the premise of no accident.

Because the exploration of extraterrestrial planets is restricted by the launch window, the launch window period from Mars to Earth is about 26 months. If you miss the window period, you will have to wait for the next period.

In the end, after reading the mission overview of "Tianwen: Mars Express", Fang Hong closed the materials and couldn't help but said: "It's really complicated, the whole process must be carefully calculated, and no mistakes can be made in any link to finally bring the samples back to Earth."

However, according to the four-launch plan of the program, even if the Martian samples are not brought back, it does not mean a complete failure, because four launches are equivalent to four sub-tasks, and there must be gains.

Clearly, a sample return program is significant.

Once successful, it will not only create a world-shaking achievement, but more importantly, the technology it has mastered means that it has the ability to send human astronauts to Mars and return samples to Earth. Mars and return to Earth.

There is no doubt that the success of the "Tianwen: Mars Express" mission will lay a solid technical foundation for the subsequent Mars manned landing plan.

At this moment, Fang Hong re-opened the document report, flipped through a few pages, glanced at the content, and then raised his eyes to Yu Qiu: "Why don't these two deep space exploration projects have budget reports?"

Upon hearing this, Yu Qiu immediately replied, "Yes, but it's not in this material."

Fang Hong said succinctly: "How much is the budget?"

Yu Qiu immediately replied: "The overall budget assessment result of the Saturn exploration mission needs about 20 billion to 22 billion yuan, and the overall budget assessment result of the Mars exploration mission needs about 30 billion to 35 billion yuan."

The total budget of the two deep space exploration projects is 50 billion to 57 billion yuan, and the risk factor is very high. If it fails, tens of billions will be wasted.

For domestic reference, there is no previous experience for reference. If you want to touch the eagle sauce and cross the river, you will not be allowed to touch it. At most, you can use some published information as a reference. For example, the Saturn exploration mission plan refers to "Cassini". Exploration program.

The difficulty and risk of the two exploration missions are super high, but the most difficult is not the farthest Saturn exploration mission, but the Mars exploration mission, because bringing back samples from Mars, this is something that Lao Mei failed to do. .

Fang Hong put the materials in his hand aside, thought for a moment, and then made a decision: "Sure, let's advance the two deep space exploration projects at the same time."

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