Chapter 233 Cooperation
"By the way, Lin Ju, does Xinyuan have any plans for the development of the lunar surface?"
"Hmm... what do you mean?"
Academician She thought for a while and pointed at his feet:
"Resources, I see that the basic configuration of Xinyuan 3 is three-stage, which must be born for landing on the moon and Mars. With such a large capacity, in addition to sending more people up, we must also find a way to bring things back from the moon, right?"
Lin Ju: "Resource development? I do have some ideas. After all, it may be a bit difficult to make money from lunar tourism, but I haven't found a valuable target yet."
Speaking of lunar mining, we have to mention the hardworking Explorer 1.
This big spider has walked a total of 17 kilometers on the lunar surface and explored an area within nearly 10 square kilometers, but it didn't find any valuable mineral deposits.
At least in its drilling depth, there is no rich ore at all, and the ground team of the Explorer project is going crazy.
The only valuable thing is helium-3, but this thing can't be used now!
So now the team is planning to continue launching the Explorer, preferably with Xinyuan-2 to launch three landers weighing 5.8 tons, each carrying two Explorer robots, to conduct exploration in three locations, preferably in November.
But this plan was postponed again, because Cheng Nankai is actively promoting the 280W large nuclear battery, and some of the nuclear bases have entered practical production and are expected to be produced within November, and the Explorer follow-up mission is planned to be carried out in December.
The new Explorer will be equipped with four 280W nuclear batteries, which can continuously output 1120W of electricity without relying on solar panels, enough to maintain activities in energy-saving mode, and can also reduce weight by 40 kg.
But the mass of the new Explorer will increase to 450 kg, the robot structure will be reduced to 115 kg, and the scientific research payload that can be carried will be increased to 135 kg, while Explorer-1 only has 50 kg of equipment.
Such a new Explorer can work continuously on the lunar surface, unlike Explorer-1... It has cleaned the dust for Yutu-2 four times.
Explorer 1 is almost a full-time nanny, because it cleans Yutu 2, which extends the latter's effective working time by 20%.
The Fifth Academy is so envious of the Explorer's flexible robotic arm, but the difficulty is not manufacturing but AI control, and they can't achieve such flexible control.
The Explorer team plans to launch the third and fourth batches, up to 30 Explorer 2 robots, after the second batch of Explorers failed to find mineral deposits two months later. They don't believe that they can't find a large mine in the Aitken Basin.
When Lin Ju told the follow-up plan of Explorer, Academician She was silent.
"How much do you plan to spend on this?"
Lin Ju thought for a while: "Well, Explorer 2 is more expensive than Explorer 1, but we plan to mass-produce 12, and the cost of one is about 10 million. Including the lander, the price of two Explorers is about 40,000?"
40 million? If you didn't say it, I thought it was 400 million!
Academician She wanted to complain, but then he thought that mass production can really reduce costs. The Space Administration has also tried it. The Sixth Academy established an industrial assembly line through mass production of YF130, and the cost was reduced by 72%. It has become an internal learning model.
In the face of large-scale plans, industrial mass production is indeed much cheaper.
Lin Ju has not yet mentioned the launch cost of Xinyuan 2, which must be kept secret. The total cost of sending 6 big spiders at a time is only 200 million, which is very cheap.
Academician She was going to say something else, but now he asked:
"Why don't we sell two Explorers to the space agency? We don't need the equipment, we just need the basic framework, and we can install the equipment ourselves. By the way, do you really have a 280w, 50kg RTG? This is much more advanced than Curiosity."
"Hey, Professor Cheng is still very powerful. He has been hiding his strength abroad for fear that he would not be able to come back. Now he can finally show it to the fullest.
But if you sell it abroad... 40 million each? I will give you a lander if you buy two, and 80 million is okay? The launch is not included. In this way, you pay 200 million, and the Explorer 2 mission in December will have four of ours, and two of yours will be launched together?"
Lin Ju's offer this time was really not high. The launch cost of Xinyuan 2 and the remaining Explorer robots and landers added up to only 200 million. If the space agency buys two and launches them together, it is equivalent to getting four Explorers for free. Isn't it wonderful?
Academician She was a little speechless about Lin Ju's behavior of raising the price in a blink of an eye, but he rarely bargained and just nodded.
It is a great profit to launch two explorers with nuclear batteries for 200 million yuan. Of course, this is also because we can get a bargain by launching in a group with Xinyuan. Don't worry about it too much. Private enterprises need to make a living.
"By the way, how is the progress of your Fram space station?"
Since the aerodynamic test prototype of H2 was delivered to Wulanhashan in July, people on the prairie can often see it.
H2 is much larger than H1. Although it has the artifact SC09, astronauts still need to practice manual operation. Now it is constantly flying and gliding, testing various extreme conditions to provide data to the simulator.
The first H2M "Pioneer" will make its maiden flight on November 20, and the first batch of 7 pilots are being actively trained. This is a real big guy, and it is much more cautious to operate than H1.
The upcoming H2 also means that the construction of Fram space station will usher in a peak operation period, and the truss structure will be born again. The space agency is paying close attention.
Lin Ju: "This year, the main thing is to launch the three axial modules for docking, and next year we will launch and install the centrifugal part, which requires H2M, as you know."
Academician She: "It would be great if H2M can make its first flight next year. We are building the 'Sky Survey' space telescope. If H2M is as big as that, I think we can expand the size of the Sky Survey's lens to 4.2 meters and launch it with H2M."
Lin Ju: "Of course, the Hubble situation will not happen to the Sky Survey."
The Hubble telescope was launched using a low-overload space shuttle because it was very precise. It had many problems in space for several years, and they were all repaired by the Discovery missions, allowing this $10 billion observation miracle to continue working.
The Sky Survey is of course the same. With the help of H2M, there is no need to consider too many overload issues during rocket launches when designing.
"Well... I wonder if the Fram has any plans for external cooperation?"
"You mean?"
Academician She nodded: "I think your engineers also know that Fram has the potential to be an interstellar spacecraft. With it, manned exploration of Mars will be very convenient."
More than potential, because of the truss structure and overall rotation, Fram has high strength, and a little acceleration is easy.
"If Fram can be open to cooperation, the space agency can provide a sum of money, this amount."
Academician She raised two fingers.