By this time, all the space shuttles had arrived in front of the asteroid, keeping the same speed as Apophis, at a distance of 10,000 meters; their noses were facing Apophis. At this time, it is only 400,000 kilometers away from the earth, almost the same distance as the moon. In fact, it is already an extremely dangerous distance.
Taking a deep breath, Mu Xinghai suddenly opened his eyes and gave the most critical command: Accelerate the reaction!
The command was issued, and all space shuttles re-ignited at the same time four seconds later, and the response accelerated.
There can be no mistakes in this calculation and action. The asteroid Apophis is elliptical, so the linear velocity at both ends is significantly higher than the linear velocity at the waist. During the interception, the waist position must be accurately intercepted; otherwise, the asteroid's own flipping will bring thousands of tons of additional force, which will pose a great threat to the entire operation.
100 meters away, the asteroid is flipping...
The distance is 50 meters, and the waist of the asteroid is facing the center of the carbon fiber mesh...
The distance is 30 meters, the relative speed between the flight formation and the asteroid is 0.3 meters per second, approaching!
near! near! near! The real battle has officially begun! This is mankind's first alternative battle, and the object of the battle is this unpredictable and extremely dangerous space. This is also a clarion call: Humanity is unwilling to succumb to the small earth and has officially embarked on the road to conquer the entire universe, an endless road of expansion!
"Boom!" At that moment, the engine roared and the aircraft structure creaked, as if there was a giant behind him pinching the powerful Dream aircraft like an ant.
Yang Zhi now feels like the world is spinning, his head and legs are stretched forward, and his waist and abdomen are firmly fixed on the seat by the seat belt.
At this moment, although the plane was accelerating, it was carried backwards by Apophis. All carbon fiber ropes are taut.
All the engines began to add power, but the roar seemed to turn into a whine. No matter how the engines worked, the entire assembly was still retreating rapidly. Apophis is too fast and too heavy!
Thousands of aircraft have a total thrust of 120,000 tons; but Apophis weighs at least 49 million tons.
No! Based on calculations based on the role of the aircraft, the space base supercomputer in space soon calculated the true density of Apophis, which was 5.62 tons per cubic meter! This means that the real weight of Apophis is about 100 million tons!
This shows that Apophis is an asteroid with an iron core. But now, all the power China has reserved is a little nervous! If calculated according to the density of 5.62.
But before I had time to worry about this matter, a new problem broke out!
The power of an asteroid to flip is beyond imagination, especially because it has an iron core, which increases this power a lot.
The asteroid Apophis' flipping did not stop after contact with the carbon fiber mesh. The powerful turning force brought about hundreds of thousands of tons of eccentric force, causing the originally calculated center position to move laterally by more than ten meters out of thin air.
This turn of events was truly beyond everyone’s imagination. At this time, it is too late to control it remotely.
"Switch to manual!" Liu Haibo made a decisive decision, "All reserve team members, listen, from one o'clock to five o'clock, the space shuttles in the direction of the ring are fully powered, don't worry about anything else. The remaining space shuttles will shut down their engines immediately.
After 1.5 seconds, restart. ”
Time was tight, and Liu Haibo didn't even have time to calculate. Because just this time, the complete formation in space has become a bit chaotic.
"Roger!" Yang Zhi happened to be in the acceleration zone; in an instant, the engine exploded with full thrust. The new Dream engine can provide a rated thrust of 180 tons; it can burst into an excess thrust of 190 tons in a short period of time. But now it's just full power, not excess.
It’s just that this feeling is not pleasant! The engine roared, but could not move forward. It was dragged back by Apophis. Especially after receiving additional resistance, Apophis' orbit became unstable. In order to adjust its center of gravity, the space shuttle had to correct its orbit again based on feeling. , even more so that Apophis' trajectory began to change drastically.
The most important thing is that the current orbit is heading directly towards the earth!
The commanders in all the space bases were in a hurry, considering too many things, but not this. Although Apophis is a good asteroid, it is too small after all! Its own orbit was already unstable enough, and it was still turning over; and now it was even more: after receiving a slight force, it deviated directly from its original orbit; coupled with the influence of the earth's gravity, it actually went straight towards the earth.
In other words, it was supposed to pass by the earth!
"What are you doing!!!" At this moment, the whole world is blaming China. What was originally a simple matter was solved with a few shots. Look what you are doing!
Faced with the blame from the whole world on public channels, China couldn't care less. All the experts were scrambling to re-correct the data. It's just that in space now, although it is relatively close to the earth, there is still a delay of more than 1 second in the one-way signal. The asteroid is still rolling, and some carbon fiber mesh has been turned into a mess! Some aircraft have automatically implemented protection procedures and separated from the fiber net because the tail tension is too high.
The space base has completely lost effective control. We can only rely on the high quality of the pilots!
In space, the space shuttle and pilots still did not give up. At this time, the powerful core of the space shuttle has automatically corrected its orbit and calculated the data automatically.
Because Liu Haibo's order was issued through an internal public channel, other echelons also received it; although the other three echelons were not under Liu Haibo's control; at this critical moment, everyone worked together! At this moment, there is nothing much to worry about.
All pilots made a quick decision and switched operations to manual while the onboard computer quickly calculated a corrected trajectory. As a backup means, it is already working at full capacity.
Yang Zhi gritted his teeth and pressed firmly on the console with both hands. The powerful force and violent vibrations made Yang Zhi feel like all the bones in his body were falling apart. But at this time, you can't give up. Because this is a collaborative, dangerous and high-speed operation. Once there is a little problem, it will not only affect you; more importantly, you may lose your life. This is space, and skydiving has no effect.
"Huh..." Mu Xinghai took a deep breath: "Prepare the rail guns! All rail guns over 10 meters in length, as long as they are in the right direction, will lock on to Apophis."
Order, extremely cold!
"No, you can't do this!" Zhong Yuanxing jumped up instantly. There were 1,200 space shuttles and 1,200 top pilots there.
"It's too late!" Mu Xinghai's eyes flashed with grief. Sometimes, some decisions have to be made. If you make a miscalculation, you will have to pay for your actions.