Chapter 1097 Preparing to Return
When O'Keefe revealed his plan, everyone else had basically the same idea -
Are you crazy?
No matter how "civilian" they are on the surface and in organization, the aerospace authorities of various countries are inextricably linked to their own military.
After all, launch vehicles and ballistic missiles are often separated only by a layer of window paper.
NASA is certainly no exception.
In fact, the US aerospace measurement and control network is jointly constructed by NASA and the Department of Defense.
Therefore, it is not difficult for O'Keefe to mobilize a reconnaissance plane.
Even the reconnaissance request he issued may have priority before the theater-level military units.
But the problem is...
The object of reconnaissance is really too wild.
The predecessor of Dongfeng Aerospace City was the former 20th Base of the General Armament Department and the first missile test base in China.
Only later, as the level of technology continued to improve, a fixed place was no longer needed to test missile performance.
That’s why it was changed into a place dedicated to serving the manned aerospace project.
When sending reconnaissance planes to scout places like this, there always seems to be a feeling of entering a nostalgic server——
If the history of USAF aerial reconnaissance were to be written into a book, it would probably be thicker than the history of the United States itself.
Of course there are many brilliant parts.
But the reconnaissance of China is definitely the most difficult chapter.
From the P2V "Neptune" to the U2 "Mrs. Dragon" to the BQM-34 "Firebee"...
All kinds of new equipment, in short, a lot of them were given away.
Although most of the missions are not carried out by Americans themselves, it is definitely not a shameful thing.
Also, this is the 21st century.
At least on the surface, peace and development have become the themes of the times.
It is impossible for the higher-ups to agree to the request to enter the interior of China to cause trouble.
Looking at the strange looks from around him, O'Keefe also realized that his statement just now was somewhat ambiguous.
"There is no need to reconnoiter their entire western region... Just include the measurement and control station in Shule within the surveillance range."
The atmosphere in the conference room relaxed slightly.
After all, the Shule region is only about three hundred kilometers away from Kyrgyzstan.
Such reconnaissance can be conducted entirely outside the country.
However, the problem still has not completely disappeared.
As subordinates, it may not be easy for other people to object directly at this time.
But Marville’s qualifications at NASA are extremely high, and as a consultant, he is O’Keeffe’s old friend and personal consultant. Instead, he needs to pull back at this time:
“Xiao , even if it does not enter the opponent's airspace, the reconnaissance behavior itself is a very strong provocative signal... The relationship between us and China is relatively relaxed at the moment, you see..."
In this timeline, the two sides were in 1996 No very direct conflict broke out in the future, especially the few years at the turn of the century, which were considered a smooth transition. Therefore, Marville's "détente" is not an exaggeration.
Moreover, this sentence has a deeper meaning.
Even when we massively raised troops to advance into Central Asia, we still received support from China and used other airports to transport materials and personnel.
Now, it’s not impossible to use this place as a base to attack others, but at least it should be done more cleanly...
Hearing this, O’Keefe lowered his head and thought for a long time.
But in the end, I still chose to stick to my opinion:
“In any case, the relay communication must be fed back to the ground station in the end, and no matter how high the orientation accuracy of this type of signal is, it will not appear There will be a radius of hundreds of kilometers on the ground.”
"We sent a reconnaissance plane over, kept silent the whole time, and used passive reconnaissance methods to only receive but not transmit. After capturing their signals, we withdrew. Even if we couldn't decode and decipher the specific content of their communications, we could at least pass on the signal characteristics. , to identify which satellite is ultimately transmitting signals to the ground.”
That’s right.
In the eyes of Americans, engaging in passive reconnaissance rather than active reconnaissance is already showing the greatest sincerity.
Of course, objectively speaking, this is indeed a perfect edge ball.
Even if the whole world knows what a reconnaissance plane hovering near the border is planning to do, the airspace of Aiwuhan and Kyrgyzstan is completely open to the US Air Force, and there is no problem.
On the contrary, it is inconvenient for China to interfere.
It is not even possible to use accompanying flight interference to drive away like in the southeast direction.
Therefore, Marvell said nothing more.
In this way, O'Keefe's request was quickly conveyed through special channels to the Central Command responsible for affairs in the Central and Far East regions.
But the latter was unprepared for this——
Shenzhou 5 was launched at 9 a.m. Beijing time on the 15th, and the mission lasted only 21 hours in total. In other words, it will land around 5:40 a.m. on the 16th.
And now it is the evening of the 15th, Beijing time.
The operating time left for them is less than 8 hours.
However, it must be admitted that at the beginning of the 21st century, the efficiency of the US military was quite acceptable.
After receiving the mission request, Central Command Commander John Abizaid quickly extracted himself from the already chaotic military affairs and allocated resources that met O'Keefe's requirements...
...
Later in the day.
Dongfeng Aerospace City.
The leaders who watched the launch mission here in the morning had already left, so Chang Haonan also had the opportunity to sit in the guest seats and enjoy the best view in the entire command and control hall.
About an hour ago, he, together with dozens of other comrades here, watched the entire content of the call between heaven and earth, which lasted for a total of 48 minutes -
about ten minutes more than what the TV viewers saw.
It can be said that the effect far exceeded expectations.
In addition, the spacecraft has entered the second half of its eighth orbit around the earth and is about to begin its ninth cycle.
It happens to be the time when the operation is at its most stable.
Therefore, the atmosphere in the entire hall was much more relaxed than in the past dozen hours.
Especially for Chang Haonan.
Although the communication verification task is not over yet, the longest lasting connection has been completed, and it is just some routine finishing work.
Of course, it is impossible to sleep before the excitement of directly participating in the manned space project has passed.
At this time, Shen Junrong, wearing a light blue overalls, also walked quickly from a short distance away.
He didn't look like a 60-year-old comrade who had stayed up for almost 24 hours.
"Comrade Haonan, you're done!"
The corners of his grinned mouth couldn't be suppressed at all. Before he could move his feet, he had already placed a few pages of the report in his hand. In front of Chang Haonan:
"The maximum communication delay is 327ms, the average communication capacity is 6.2Mbps, and the maximum communication capacity is 12.7Mbps... It is indeed much better than the performance of geosynchronous orbit satellites..."
The latter As soon as the previous communication ended, I received the results from Tanzhou, so I didn't read the specific content of the report in front of me. I just adjusted my posture slightly and leaned on the backrest:
"You can't say that...after all, the communication coverage is relatively limited, and the satellite attitude is specially adjusted for a single target..."
"If you want to achieve such an effect on any spacecraft, I'm afraid it needs to be At least 40-60 satellites, and the number of channels and antenna coverage of each satellite must be doubled... There is still a long way to go!”
Although the words are very modest, no matter from the tone, Judging by his expression, he was obviously satisfied with the result.
Of course Shen Junrong could see this, so he happily sat next to him:
"Don't mess with those lies. This test is not only technically perfect, but also from a practical point of view. At the publicity level, the influence is also very large... Although the scale of 40-60 satellites is definitely a dream, but with today's announcement, it will definitely not be a problem to arrange a group of scientific exploration and technology test satellites for you..."
"I guess this was Comrade Haonan's original goal, right?"
I can only say that he is indeed an old expert.
That's a good guess.
The Qingluan satellite cluster is an attempt to serve as a front station for the practice series of satellites.
However, Chang Haonan was no longer a newbie now. He was not embarrassed at all when his idea was dispelled. Instead, he quietly changed the topic:
"This program has only been broadcast for less than an hour, and Mr. Shen already knows the influence?"
"Of course!"
Unexpectedly, faced with this half-joking topic , Shen Junrong was very serious:
“Do you know how many foreign cooperation projects our country’s aerospace industry has been disrupted by Americans either directly threatening it or secretly stumbling upon it?”
“It’s not because after the Cold War, the world can only rely heavily on the United States for aerospace infrastructure. Others are worried that cooperation with us will cut off the support they get... The live broadcast you just proposed is likely to promote The entire industry breaks through the blockade! ”
Regarding aerospace matters, Chang Haonan probably knew some well-known events, but after all, he was not in the field, and his knowledge was not as detailed as aviation.
But according to Shen Junrong, it is also because the West has been blocked for a long time.
Although there have been much fewer restrictions on specific technologies in recent years, at the project level, the situation has obviously not improved much.
So, he just followed what he said and asked the other party to continue talking about what happened before.
In such a peaceful and peaceful atmosphere, the time soon came to the second half of the night.
According to the plan, Shenzhou 5 was about to enter the return preparation stage, so everyone in the control hall began to get busy.
But at this moment, someone suddenly reported a piece of breaking news——
About 400 kilometers west of the Shule Measurement and Control Station, an aircraft operating at 17,000 meters was discovered High altitude unidentified aircraft!
(End of this chapter)