Chapter 262: Deja Vu

Although the two H2Ms are both the first batch to leave the factory, their missions are different.

The Pioneer was transported directly to Qiongzhou by B4043, where it formed a combination with the specially modified Xinyuan-2A rocket and waited for launch, while the Glory was conducted test flight at the B-level base.

The space shuttle has no power in the atmosphere, but Serev, who was born in the Alliance, used a simple and crude method. Two XW-9 jet engines were bundled on both sides of the Pioneer's tail. After slight modification, the Glorious was equipped with the ability to autonomously start in the atmosphere. ability to drop.

In this way, Glorious can take off on the runway by itself and complete at least 20 test flights before manned flight.

Although the aerodynamic verification aircraft in the Ulan Hashan base has flown hundreds of times, there is still a big difference after all. In order to rush for time, the Pioneer was directly pulled away for an unmanned test launch, and the Glory stayed at the B-level base for test flights. Even if something goes wrong, it can be easily corrected.

The Xinyuan-2A rocket that launched the Pioneer also needs special modifications. The two universal core-stage boosters can be directly used as the Xinyuan-2 first stage, but the middle core stage needs to be newly manufactured and strengthened. The rocket body will increase a lot. The steel structure can withstand more than 100 tons of lateral stress without cracking.

All preparations are in place, and the launch date of the Pioneer is initially set at November 28. The first flight will be carried out at the end of December, and half a month will be spent to inspect the assembly.

Theoretically speaking, the significance of H2M is no less than that of super rockets such as Xianyuan 3, but now the limelight is on Aramco.

"... Space is the ultimate dream of mankind... Ami will change from now on and become great again..."

The boss slept at the base all night, and early in the morning he saw the hot trend on Douyin push: John George was elected as the 45th Aramco boss with 302 votes.

I opened Douyin tremblingly. It was evening time, two hours after John gave his speech.

In the picture, John looks far less energetic than before the election. Instead, he is a bit reserved. His writing is quite satisfactory and nothing outstanding.

The boss's intuition told him that John must have been poorly prepared, and was in a hurry and was not even ready to be elected.

He suddenly found that he couldn't understand the people of Ame. Why did he suddenly abandon the traditional elite Diane and choose red-necked John?

After being stuck on this question for a while, the boss came out of the storm of political establishment and turned to consider another question: Is the God of War Ares plan really going to happen? You won’t really continue to drag CASA into the space race, right?

No way, right?

Until Lin Ju and others found him, the boss was still in a daze.

"It is indeed a habit of history..."

"Xiao Lin, how did you choose this John George? It's unscientific!"

The boss interrupted Lin Ju's spell casting, and couldn't hide the confusion on his face.

Others also agreed. They are all senior members of the Aviation Development Committee, and they have good vision. How come the person who is least likely to be elected is elected?

"Ahem, we can't understand the internal affairs of Amei. After all, we are not Amei people."

Lin Ju said a few perfunctory words. This topic is quite sensitive, so he might as well say something else:

"Leader, no matter what, the facts are like this, then shouldn't we... launch some Mars exploration missions?"

"Hiss... That's right. John will not take office until January next year. If the Ares plan is really launched, we will be the ones lagging behind."

The boss immediately realized that if the track were changed to Mars, his side would not have the advantage.

Aramco has already conducted quite a few Mars exploration missions, including flyby explorations, Mars orbiting satellites, surface landers, roving robots, etc. in the last century. There are a large number of detectors available.

Mariner 9, launched by NACA in 1971, became the first artificial satellite to orbit Mars. In 1997, the Sojourner rover was carried by the Mars Pathfinder lander and landed on the surface of Mars, becoming the first Mars ground probe. , and later the Ingenuity, Phoenix, Courage, Curiosity and so on.

Coupled with the Mars orbiting probes of island countries, Europe and other allied countries, they have comprehensive and complete detection methods, which can almost provide preliminary preparations for manned landing on Mars.

On the other hand, CASA's first attempt at a Mars exploration mission was in 2011, when it built the "Yinghuo-1" satellite and the Lucia rocket to go to Mars together with the "Forbes-Soil" probe.

Then... the main engine of the rocket's upper stage failed to start, and "Forbes-Soil" crashed into the Pacific Ocean with Yinghuo 1 in January of the following year.

Since then, CASA has believed in its destiny and will no longer cooperate with Lucia on Mars exploration missions.

The Alliance has launched the Mars exploration plan in 1960. On the contrary, NACA was only launched in 1964. However, from the Alliance to Lucia, from 1960 to 2011, there were 20 probes in 51 years, and all failed.

Some malfunctioned during the flight and did not leave the earth's orbit, some lost the signal, some passed by Mars without a trace, and some finally landed and worked for a few minutes before finishing.

It was as if Mao Zi was born in conflict with Mars, and his mission to Mars was never successful.

Rabbit did not believe in evil and tried it as an atheist, and then he realized that some things were indeed metaphysical.

In January of this year, exactly five years had passed since Yinghuo-1, before the space agency again planned the Mars exploration mission "Tianwen-1".

Although the time is the same as in history, because Xinyuan has been making waves for more than a year, the plan has also made a lot of changes.

The initial plan is to launch around 2018, using the experience of Chang'e 3 to send the orbiting satellite, lander, and rover to Mars at one time. The total mass is about 5 tons, which is about the same as the Long March 7A rocket.

Tianwen 1 is CASA's first probe to Mars, and there is nothing else.

So if manned landing on Mars is really carried out, it means that CASA needs to spend an extra window period to launch the probe, at least to confirm a suitable landing site first.

Because Mars is not like the moon, it has a stronger gravity and an atmosphere. It is not cost-effective to bring the return fuel from the earth to Mars and then use it for return. It is necessary to find a place where fuel (roughly determined to be methane) can be synthesized.

Lin Ju: "It's too troublesome to wait for the window period to land on Mars. The window period only comes once every 26 months. Even if we launch during the rest of the time, the time it takes to wait for the window period is almost the same because the distance is too far. This year's window period has been missed. The next one will be in May 2018. We have almost 16 months to plan the Mars exploration mission in 2018."

Boss: "Then Tianwen-1 will not work. The probe launched this time must have the ability to find a suitable landing site and provide basic environmental detection on Mars.

One window period is still too short. Oh, Tianwen-1 should have been planned earlier. It would be very suitable to launch it this year. It will arrive in about 10 months, leaving more than a year of exploration time."

The boss blamed himself a little, because compared with the lunar exploration, the priority of the Mars mission was relatively low, so the space agency had not paid much attention to it, and its main energy was focused on the Chang'e series of missions.

This led to the launch of the second Mars exploration plan 5 years after the failure of Yinghuo-1. Although it was more radical, it could not make up for the lost time.

But no one expected that the space agency would soon fall into the competition of landing on Mars after landing on the moon. It can only be said that plans cannot keep up with changes.

At this time, Shelyov, who had been standing silently, finally spoke:

"One window period does not mean launching only one rocket. The Mars orbital capacity of Xinyuan-2 can reach about 10 tons, and the number of Xinyuan-2s we have is equal to the number of launch sites."

"You mean..." Academician She remembered that when the alliance was competing for the first launch of the probe in the early days, because the success rate could not be guaranteed, 3 to 4 rockets and the same probe were prepared at one time, and they were launched intensively during the window period. The idea was that there would always be one that would succeed, and the redundancy was enough to bet on one.

Now the number of Xinyuan-2 rockets has reached 6, and there are exactly 6 launch sites in China that can launch it, which means that at most 60 tons of mass can be projected to Mars within a window period of one month? !

Academician She looked at Shelyov, feeling the firmness and confidence on his face, and suddenly felt a sense of déjà vu.