Chapter 765 - 733 Help_2

Furthermore, in the future, there will be many celestial bodies of similar scale to the spaceport, and extraterrestrial planet construction projects, the ’South Heaven Gate’ plan is expected to span over 20 years."

This statement finally settled everyone’s mind, plainly indicating that this business could be operated for 20 years, and that investing in research and development would certainly not be a loss.

"Then, Ju Li Group hopes to undertake the part of the tethered traction ropes for the rotational gravity section, as well as the external fixed cables."

"Alright, now that the staff members have registered, please make contact after the meeting concludes."

Zhong Cheng immediately responded, at the same time casting an encouraging look at the others.

"Sunshine Energy can take on the backup generator sets and the full-electric basic power system design! We have designed similar systems for supply ships, and we have relevant experience!"

"We have experience with the water recycling system, we can combine it with the air recycling system!"

"We can do instrumentation and lighting."

"Could we learn a bit about the requirements for the fire extinguishing system later?"

"The fire extinguishing system, oh we can do that too!"

"..."

Watching the crowd’s enthusiastic response, Long Jiacheng finally found a gap to raise his hand.

A representative from Aerospace Troops moved closer, wanting to see which sub-projects he had marked; Long Jiacheng simply spoke up:

"Lingxi hopes to take on the entire spaceport’s internal communication control system, unifying the interface standards for all parts."

"Unify the standards?"

Long Jiacheng smiled slightly, "We have authorization for New Yuan’s RX02 bus protocol, which happens to match perfectly."

The other party’s pupils immediately narrowed; taking on the communication system was undoubtedly a tremendous project. They hurriedly flicked through the pages looking for similar projects, ready to raise their hand at any moment.

...

Base Level B.

He Tang stood on the runway of the base, alongside other members of the Aerospace Development Committee, shading their eyes from the sun and straining to look at the clouds in the sky.

Around them, many people had gathered—most were base employees, while the rest were generally from the space agency and the military—all intermittently scanning the sky in unison.

The area around the airport was constantly overseen by drones, preventing any outsiders from approaching, though in truth not much could be hidden.

Seven days earlier, Enterprise had taken off from the second experimental base in the northwest and entered space, orbiting the Earth multiple times before docking with the Tiangong Space Station.

In September, the Tiangong Space Station had temporarily suspended its tourism reception for 15 days due to the Moon blasting operation, creating the perfect conditions to keep the Enterprise’s mission confidential.

During those seven days, the astronauts from Tiangong Space Station and Xie Liaofu among others carried out several extravehicular activities to ensure that Enterprise’s sharp-angled outer form had not deformed or been damaged due to the intense atmospheric friction, also checking that the electromechanical systems and propulsion systems were fault-free before approving the landing operation.

Different from the takeoff, Enterprise’s landing required the use of aerodynamic shaping for deceleration to save fuel, circling around the landing center, and during approach to landing, it would often pass low over densely populated areas, losing the secrecy maintained during takeoff.

Up to now, only America had discovered the anomaly with Enterprise because the Aerospace Development Committee hadn’t disclosed the experimental operation to the public, only opting to declassify the mission for Enterprise now if necessary.

Just as described in the initial technical data from NPAE, the "Mount Everest" engine represented the last generation of rocket jet engines, like the A100, it was the culmination of the traditional technology route, squeezing the last value from the existing theories in space propulsion.

The revelation of its existence to other organizations would undoubtedly cause an immense technological shock, but now was not the time to concern oneself with that; the priority was to strengthen one’s own capabilities.

"Has Enterprise entered the atmosphere yet? Is it coming in from Central Asia or the northwest?"

He Tang asked the engineer from the Fourth Institute, but the other party shook his head as well:

"Hard to say, it depends on how they choose."

Unlike any previous aircraft or spacecraft, Enterprise’s re-entry into the atmosphere was highly flexible; if it wanted to save fuel and minimize risks, it could glide slowly, using aerodynamics for deceleration over a vast range, much like an aero-space plane.

However, if for some special reason it could not glide over a large distance, then it could also take a steep curving descent, though the fuel required for attitude adjustments would be greater and risk would be higher.

These two are only extreme cases, AI can adjust flexibly according to the actual situation, no need for the ground control to plan the flight path specially.

...

Over Kazakhstan.

Meng Senlin finally understood the feeling described by the Moon team; when they were aboard Chapter 9, due to its special configuration, the thrust did not always come from a fixed direction. The irregular thrust and orientation could disorient passengers in an instant, and it took a long time to adapt.

In fact, the situation for Enterprise was even more severe, because it included aerodynamic deceleration procedures. Although the Enterprise’s general movement followed a smooth transition line, it was actually adjusting its attitude every few seconds, or it would suddenly start making large circles to decelerate in a specific airspace.

Apart from the flight computer, no one knew what attitude Enterprise would take the next second, with accelerations sometimes pointing up, sometimes down, but more often they would appear in any direction without a pattern.

Even though the acceleration was not large, it was more disorienting than a high overload from a single direction.

Seven days ago, Xie Liaofu, who had been encouraging the flight crew with chicken soup, was now silent. The descent process was much more uncomfortable than takeoff, and even someone in their prime could barely endure it, only closing his eyes tightly and taking deep breaths, trying to fight the dizzy feeling in his mind.

Meng Senlin, on the other hand, still maintained his composure. He was a member of the Space Force, and of course, he had to try his best to adapt to his own weapons.

"..."

Enterprise once again began to perform aerial spiraling for aerodynamic deceleration, but because its main motion was still in high-speed gliding, it appeared from the ground like an out-of-control falling leaf spiraling down in the wind—completely out of control.

"товарищ, товарищ! Это дальневосточное пространство!"

Enterprise’s radio suddenly transmitted a series of hurried Russsian speech. None of the flight crew understood Russian except for Xie Liaofu, who suddenly opened his eyes and looked out the window.

"It’s the Far East air defense force, they’re asking if we need help, they think our spacecraft is out of control."

Meng Senlin glanced at the radar, which showed no changes. Enterprise was still tens of thousands of meters high, and the radar was mainly used for detecting mountains and weather, not small objects like airplanes.

But even if it was out of control, there wasn’t much the air defense force could do to help.

"Mr. Xie, please tell them we are in good condition and thank them for their good intentions."

"No problem, connect me to the channel... Дорогой даварик..."

...

"They say there’s no malfunction ()!"

In front of Enterprise, MiG-31 pilots and their wingmen, who were relaying observations, were also discussing the strange flying object above them.

From the moment Enterprise entered the atmosphere, it was detected by Russia’s vast monitoring network, reported immediately, and the Kremlin issued instructions to monitor this peculiar unidentified flying object.

Along the border line, planes took off continuously to accompany it, but for a while, Enterprise was flying too high to be noticed.

It was not until now that Andrei saw the huge radiation source and its quite unstable signal characteristics on the radar.

"What the hell is this, it’s rotating, it’s rotating! Is it a UFO?"

The thought of a flying saucer occurred to the wingman pilot immediately as only such craft would spin and fall like that; a human spacecraft in such an attitude would be doomed to crash.

"Keep close, it’s about to enter China’s airspace!"

Andrei looked up, now seeing a constantly flickering and extremely unstable light; it really did resemble a UFO.

Enterprise was still maintaining a speed of five times the speed of sound, much faster than the interceptors, and quickly surpassed them into its own territory.

The two planes immediately turned back, but the four pilots continued their fervent discussion about Enterprise.

"I bet it’s not a winged flying machine, maybe something like a reusable rocket."

"A rocket would have broken apart by now! It must be round-shaped, a Chinese UFO!"

"There are actually astronauts inside, and it can communicate with us, maybe it’s an Aero-Space Plane!"

"..."