Chapter 293 Plain Zero

"73 degrees east longitude, 69 degrees south latitude, 40 kilometers in radius."

Shelev quickly found the location by calling up the high-definition color image of Mars released by NACA, and zoomed in to observe.

It was close to the Antarctic ice cap of Mars, but there was still a little distance, and nothing could be seen from the map.

Of course, this was expected. If the satellite could find anomalies at random, then this place would have been discovered long ago, and there would be no system reminder at all.

A radius of 40 kilometers, that is, an area of ​​about 5,000 square kilometers, which is about the area of ​​a medium-sized city. This is not a small place.

Shelev stared at it for a while and said to himself:

"Unnatural phenomenon, unnatural phenomenon, this word has a meaning."

"What meaning? Shouldn't unnatural be caused by human factors... or caused by intelligent bodies?"

Lin Ju was a little puzzled. Unnatural should only be used to describe intelligent bodies.

Shelev shook his head: "Unnatural, in modern physics, it can also describe the process of transformation from quantization to quantum condensed state.

This also includes the interference of intelligent bodies, but it does not mean that there is only this possibility."

Lin Ju: "..."

When it comes to quantum, Lin Ju's expression began to be confused. Although he understood every word and there were no grammatical errors, he just couldn't understand any effective information.

Shelev stood up from his diagonal posture, turned around in front of his desk with his hands behind his back, frowned and thought, and stopped after a long time, refocusing on the marked point on the screen.

"We must go here, and we must bring people over. The machine is unreliable, and we must let the astronauts go to find out.

But what is an unnatural phenomenon, and how to study it requires a professional team? Isn't there a legendary A+ scientist? Let him come as soon as possible. It's easier to get things done with more people. Maybe his major is more suitable."

Lin Ju nodded. He has already used the A+ character card and is estimated to be on the way. This time there is no 15-day time reminder, maybe it will be faster?

Shelev: "There are no named places near the coordinates provided by the system, but there is a small plain, let's call it... Plain Zero. There has never been any special phenomenon before, so there shouldn't be any immediate changes. We have plenty of time to explore, and there is no need to land desperately now.

This month we will launch a Mars probe, which can let it pay more attention, but it shouldn't be fruitful."

Lin Ju: "I suddenly feel like I have a mission for humanity now."

Although this is a bit childish, it is hard for people not to explore when you are told clearly that there is something there on Mars, even if this approach may bring unpredictable consequences.

The existence of Plain Zero cannot be told to others, and we have to try to explore it without attracting attention. Why does it always feel like a science fiction movie where everyone else is drunk and I am the only one awake?

But Lin Ju would rather not be a savior. If there is really an alien invasion, it will be a big deal.

Compared to building a space battleship that he has no concept of to fight aliens to the death, he would rather bring back a piece of ice from the South Pole of Mars to make tea.

But Shelev obviously had different ideas. In his time, searching for aliens was a hot topic, and he knew a lot of inside information at his level.

"From the very beginning, we have shouldered the mission of mankind. Astronautics is like this, but it was Mars first. I thought it would be Venus. I'll go and urge Xiao Gangtian. The thrusters of Lihuo should have completed ground testing."

Well, the Lihuo probe was not launched in the window period of 2018, but in January 2017. At this time, the state of the three points of the earth, the sun and Mars had just passed, which was the farthest time. Traditional aerospace technology takes 20 months, nearly two years, to fly there.

But the thrusters prepared for Lihuo are equipped with a nuclear reactor and a 50N super-thrust Hall thruster, which can be started during the whole process of Lihuo to Mars. There is only acceleration and deceleration process without gliding process. It takes 292 days to arrive, about 10 months.

That is to say, it will be launched in mid-January and arrive in November 2017.

On the contrary, if conventional power is used during the window period of May 2018, without the fission-Hall propulsion part, the earliest arrival time will be November to December 2018.

Of course, leaving Mars so quickly also has a price. The mass of the Mars detector itself is 10 tons, the nuclear reactor it carries has a power of 40KW, and the propulsion part is also 10 tons, with a reactor power of 90KW.

The power of that 50N Hall thruster reaches 127KW, which means that the combination of two reactors can only provide energy. The 20-ton combination, the reactor and the heat dissipation part account for nearly half of the mass.

However, the 50N Hall thruster is already energy-saving enough. As a product of the system mall, it saves 80% of power per 1N compared to the current Hall thrusters in the world. There is a huge difference in principle design, which is not comparable at all.

The 10-ton thruster, the Hall thruster part is cheaper without R&D costs, and the power generation pile also has technical reserves but needs to be included in the R&D costs. The overall cost is 1 billion yuan, which is unaffordable.

The propulsion part of the plan is to send the rocket to Mars and then fly back by itself. Although the power is reduced to 90KW, it will be faster because its own weight is reduced by half. In addition, if it encounters the Earth-Mars window period, it can return to Earth in about 3 months, which is a very fast speed.

At that time, it was almost February 2018, and other detectors could be mounted and flown to other places very quickly.

However, the specific flight time of Lihuo is confidential. The Aviation Development Commission does not know that Xinyuan has an outrageous Hall thruster with a thrust of 50N. The public statement is that Lihuo will fly for 20 months and is expected to arrive in October 2018.

This is 11 months later than the actual arrival time. Li Huo can carefully study Mars without being known to anyone, and use the various detection equipment he carries to conduct all-round exploration.

This plan was originally intended to launch planetary exploration planning as soon as possible, and the nuclear-powered thruster part was specially budgeted separately, but it went wrong.

Now that the fire detector has been manufactured, half of the three-month manufacturing cycle is spent urging domestic optical instrument manufacturers. Their production of qualified super-standard large-scale ultra-clean lenses is too slow. If it weren't for Xinyuan's "international technical support" "After some guidance, it still has to be postponed for another month.

The imminent launch of the fire detector made Lin Ju feel more at ease. Moreover, what Serev said made sense. It was unlikely that there would be any immediate problems in Plain Zero.

Just as the two men convened the senior engineers in the base to form the "Plain Zero Response Team", Ye Changsi woke up leisurely in an intensive care unit in Chengdu with his head wrapped in bandages.

The instrument detected changes in his body and issued a warning. Doctors and nurses rushed over to check his physical condition.