Chapter 1354 Assemble in Space!

Arizona Astronomical Observatory of North America.

As a large-scale astronomical observatory built after 2020, this scientific research facility has the most sensitive radio telescope array in North America, and its accuracy can even track meteorite fragments and space junk with a diameter of only half a meter—as long as it is located in the Earth-Moon system within.

As the latest and most advanced astronomical observation center in North America, the Arizona Astronomical Observatory is nominally a civilian public scientific research facility belonging to the American Astronomical Society, but in fact its funding comes from the Pentagon's defense budget, and is managed by Directly under Space Command.

Since they have all received funding from the military, the mission of this astronomical observatory is naturally impossible to be as simple as it was declared to be when it was first established.

According to an internal Pentagon document, only 30 percent of the astronomical observatory's observation mission is to find habitable planets outside the solar system.

As for the remaining 70% of the observation tasks, most of them are concentrated on the Earth-Moon transfer orbit and the Moon orbit. Needless to say, the purpose is obviously to monitor Huaguo within the Earth-Moon system for the Pentagon. space activities.

Standing next to the coffee machine and quietly waiting for the coffee to be ready, Professor Reston rubbed the sore brows with some headaches, trying to relax his nervous overheated brain.

About a week ago, Huaguo launched the first batch of components of the manned fire plan according to the schedule made public to the international community.

It was also since that day that he and the observation team he led never took a day off, and they were on standby for almost 24 hours at work, not even daring to relax for an hour.

After all, no one can guarantee that China will arrange every launch plan according to the launch plan schedule they have disclosed to the international community.

Such a thing is not without precedent.

Even they themselves have done it countless times.

As the person in charge of this astronomical observatory, as well as a researcher employed by the Pentagon, he has only one task, which is to observe and track every detail of Huaguo's fire landing plan, and get as many as possible from Gather intelligence during their launch activities.

This task was personally entrusted to him by the Secretary of Defense of the United States at a working meeting.

It was precisely because of this that from the moment he received the task, he felt the unparalleled pressure on his shoulders.

But fortunately, this period of time was finally about to be overcome by him.

The latest launch mission is already the third launch in the Huaguo Ascension Plan. And according to the launch plan they announced, if there is no accident, there will be only the last one left.

When the last time is over, their work can also come to an end for the time being.

"Xiaguang has successfully entered the synchronous orbit."

"The third batch of components released from the hold..."

"The recovery was successful, and the Magpie Bridge is speeding up its orbital change."

"The orbit switch was successful, and the Magpie Bridge has successfully entered the Earth-Moon transfer orbit!"

Reports came one after another.

Professor Reston, who was standing in the control room, listened expressionlessly.

Although there wasn't any good news for them, but for some reason, there was a slight sense of relief in his heart.

All this is finally coming to an end...

Just as he was thinking so, his assistant came in from outside the control room.

"Professor Reston."

Turning to look at his assistant, Professor Reston asked.

"whats the matter?"

"Professor Phil Goethe has submitted a visit application to NASA, and he will visit our astronomical observatory the day after tomorrow."

Hearing this strange name, Professor Reston frowned.

"Professor Phil Goethe?"

After reading the confusion in his superior's eyes, the assistant immediately introduced.

"He is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as well as a special engineer of NASA, and the person in charge of the Deep Space Gate project. Not long ago, he announced in a high-profile interview with the media that this launch and the landing on the other side of the Pacific Ocean Project Fire was doomed to failure, they simply didn't make any adequate preparations for landing on Mars..."

Having said this, he paused for a moment, and his assistant shrugged helplessly.

"Perhaps seeing that the plan of the Chinese people has been going so smoothly so far, he may be a little restless."

What if I can't sit still?

Hearing this sentence, Professor Reston couldn't help feeling a little funny in his heart.

Although this smile is mostly helpless.

Twirling the corner of his mouth expressionlessly, he spoke in a lukewarm tone.

"If he's interested, let him come."

"Though I don't think it makes much sense."

After finishing speaking, he put the empty coffee cup in his hand on the table next to the console, then bypassed his assistant, and walked towards the outside of the control room...

...

On the third day after the Magpie Bridge successfully took over the third batch of manned fire landing program components, Professor Phil Goethe arrived at the Arizona Astronomical Observatory as scheduled.

As soon as the old professor in his sixties stepped into the astronomical observatory, he saw Professor Reston walking towards him, and asked straight to the point before he even had time to say hello.

"How's the situation?"

"Where are they going with their launch plans?"

"Anything out of the ordinary?"

"It seems to me that the whole fire boarding plan is full of unusual places from the beginning to the end, which one are you referring to?" Facing the question that was thrown like a cannonball, Professor Reston shrugged his shoulders, " As for the progress of their plan, I think it should be the final stage of preparation.”

Looking at the slightly younger researcher in front of him with a stiff expression, Professor Phil Goethe said in a difficult tone.

"……The final stage?"

"That's right." Professor Reston nodded, "About half an hour ago, those Chinese people had successfully delivered the last batch of components to the Moon Palace, as they disclosed in the timetable of the fire boarding plan. Same. At first we all thought that they might evade our detection of them by temporarily adjusting the launch time. But now it seems that they don’t seem to care about our spying on them at all. plan to make any changes, even..."

Professor Phil Goethe: "Even?"

A bitter and helpless smile appeared on Professor Reston's face.

"...Even, it seems that it is deliberately placed there for us to see."

Professor Phil Goethe fell into silence, not knowing what to say.

Just over half a month ago, he was optimistic that Huaguo announced the launch of the fire landing plan at this time, most likely to provoke NASA, and use this to provoke a new round of space race to achieve some kind of unspeakable People's political purpose. And if they really start the fire plan according to such a "hasty" timetable, this immature plan is destined to become a tragedy of failure.

But now it seems that all this is purely my own imagination.

Not to mention failure, they didn't even intend to cover up, as if they didn't take their nominal opponents seriously at all.

Looking at the silent old professor, Professor Reston was silent for a while, then suddenly opened his mouth to continue.

"Let's stop talking at the door, since we're all here, let's come in and have a look."

"If I'm not mistaken, they are probably trying to figure out how to assemble those parts into a whole colony ship, and then send it to Mars with astronauts."

For the second half of the sentence, he said it in a joking tone. Although it was not comforting, the tense atmosphere around him was somewhat relaxed because of his joke.

There is no need for him to say anything about how difficult it is to assemble a spacecraft weighing hundreds of tons in lunar orbit. This is something that anyone who has a little knowledge of spaceflight knows.

Assembling three pieces of parts into a spacecraft on the Moon Palace sounds like holding an AK47 and shooting at a target hundreds of meters away, and all the bullets are drilled into the same bullseye end to end.

There is no independent power system, and its orbit is constantly adjusted according to the CCD camera and dynamic visual measurement system on the spacecraft. If you are not careful, these parts will collide into a ball and become deadly space junk.

In contrast, he is more inclined to believe that the fire landing spacecraft designed by Hua Guo is actually a spacecraft slightly smaller than the Xiaguang, and it has been sent to the Moon Palace for refueling during the first launch plan.

The next two launch missions are to send some simple ground life support devices to the Luna space station, ready to be carried by other spacecraft, and launched in batches to Mars orbit for deployment.

However, just as he was thinking this way, on the radar screen in the command room, three white dots floating around the Moon Palace gradually approached together under the pull of some kind of force.

Just brought Professor Phil Goethe into the control room, and Professor Reston, who noticed the unusual situation on the radar screen, frowned.

At first he thought it was a problem with the radio telescope array.

But he soon realized that this was impossible. The engineer in charge of equipment maintenance only performed maintenance on the radio telescope array of the astronomical observatory this morning.

Professor Phil Goethe, who was standing next to him, obviously noticed the abnormality on the radar, and muttered something to himself.

"...what the hell are they doing?"

"I don't know..." Gradually realizing the seriousness of the problem, Professor Reston immediately looked at his assistant and asked, "Can I apply for the permission to use the Universe-2 optical observation satellite?"

The Universe-2 optical observation satellite is a space observation satellite commissioned by NASA to be launched by the Space-X Group after 2022. It mainly uses high-resolution lenses to photograph planets in the solar system.

Of course, so far, like the Arizona Astronomical Observatory, 70% of the observation missions of this satellite are concentrated on the moon.

Or to be precise, 70% of the tasks are concentrated on those Chinese astronauts who are active on the moon.

"It should be fine... I'll go ask."

After dropping these words, the assistant quickly trotted to the outside of the control room.

Without making his boss wait for a long time, he quickly ran back from the outside.

"NASA has approved our application!"

After hearing this sentence, Professor Reston immediately ordered without hesitation, "Connect to the Universe-2 optical observation satellite! Focus on the Moon Palace!"

At a high altitude hundreds of kilometers away, a cylindrical satellite fine-tuned its orbit and pointing angle, and locked the lens on the Moon Palace.

When the camera was aimed at the Moon Palace and the focus was completed, everyone in the control room was stunned by the picture in front of them.

Are you really assembling a spaceship? !

WTF? !