Chapter 1097 Prepare to return
When O''Keefe revealed his plan, everyone else had basically the same idea -
Crazy?
The aerospace authorities of various countries, no matter how "civilian" they appear and are organized, are actually 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 U.S. 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 military units at the theater level.
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, with the continuous improvement of technological levels, a fixed place was no longer needed to test missile performance.
That’s why it was changed into a place dedicated to serving manned aerospace projects.
And sending a reconnaissance plane to scout a place like this always seems to feel like 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.
There are naturally many brilliant parts among them.
But the reconnaissance of China is definitely the most difficult chapter.
From P2V "Neptune" to U2 "Dragon Lady", to 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.
Moreover, 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 authorities to agree to the request to enter the interior of China to cause trouble.
Looking at the strange looks cast 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 monitoring 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.
Still, the problem hasn''t completely gone away.
As subordinates, it may not be easy for other people to object directly at this time.
However, Marville’s qualifications at NASA are extremely high, and as a consultant, he is O’Keefe’s old friend and personal consultant. Instead, he needs to pull back at this time:
"Xiao, even if you don''t 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 did not have a very direct conflict after 1996, especially the few years at the turn of the century, which were considered a smooth transition. Therefore, Marville''s "easing" 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...
When O''Keefe heard this, he lowered his head and thought for a while.
But in the end, I still chose to stick to my opinion:
"In any case, the relay communication must eventually be fed back to the ground station, and no matter how high the orientation accuracy of this type of signal is, it will appear in 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 knew what a reconnaissance aircraft hovering near the border was planning to do, the airspace in Aiukhan and Kyrgyzstan was completely open to the US Air Force, and there was no problem.
On the contrary, it is inconvenient for China to interfere.
There is even no way to use accompanying flight interference to drive them away like in the southeast direction.
Therefore, Marville 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.
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 was 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 by now, 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 and dozens of other comrades here watched the entire 48-minute call between heaven and earth—
It''s about ten minutes longer than what TV viewers see.
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 there are just some routine finishing work behind it.
Of course, it is impossible to sleep until the excitement of directly participating in the manned spaceflight project has passed.
At this time, Shen Junrong, wearing a light blue overalls, also walked quickly from a short distance away.
There is no trace of a 60-year-old comrade who has stayed up for almost 24 hours.
"Comrade Haonan, you''re done!"
The corner of his grinning mouth couldn''t be suppressed at all. Before he could stop moving his feet, he had already placed a few pages of the report 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 geostationary satellites..."
The latter had received the results from Tanzhou as early as the end of the previous communication, so he did not read the specific content of the report in front of him. He just adjusted his 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 this effect for any spacecraft, I''m afraid you will need at least 40-60 satellites, and the number of channels and antenna coverage of each satellite will have to be doubled... There is a long way to go!"
Although his words were very modest, judging from his tone and expression, he was obviously satisfied with the result.
Of course Shen Junrong could see this, so he happily sat next to him:
"Don''t be fooled. This test is not only technically perfect, but also very influential from a publicity level... Although the scale of 40-60 satellites is definitely a dream, 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 your initial goal, Comrade Haonan, right?"
All I can say is that he is indeed an experienced expert.
That''s a good guess.
The Qingluan satellite group 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 calmly changed the subject:
"This program has only been aired for less than an hour, and Mr. Shen already knows the influence?"
"Of course!"
Unexpectedly, when faced with this half-joking topic, Shen Junrong became 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 receive... The live broadcast you just proposed is likely to push the entire industry to break through the blockade. !”
Regarding aerospace matters, Chang Haonan probably knew some well-known events, but after all, he was not in his field, and his knowledge was not as detailed as aviation.
But according to Shen Junrong, it’s also because the West has been closed off 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 followed what he had just said and asked the other party to continue talking about what happened before.
And in such a peaceful and peaceful atmosphere, time soon came to the second half of the night.
According to the plan, Shenzhou 5 was about to enter the preparation stage for return, so everyone in the control hall began to get busy.
But at this moment, someone suddenly reported a breaking news——
About 400 kilometers west of Shule Measurement and Control Station, an unidentified aircraft operating at an altitude of 17,000 meters was discovered!
(End of chapter)