I ask you to build tractors, but you build rockets?.

Chapter 743 S3, Server Opening

Lin Ju stayed in the space agency's command center for three consecutive days and witnessed how the more than two-ton Mars rover frantically explored Planitia Zero.

The Firefly-1 Mars rover basically operates according to the predetermined program, conducting exploration around the positioning center point under the control of AI. With the efficiency of Firefly-20, it can carefully survey an area of ​​about square kilometers every day.

If calculated based on a 10-kilometer radius from the positioning point, the surface can be completely covered in about half a month, and in reality, about a month is enough.

Lin Ju believes that the error of the positioning point given by the system will not be too large. Once the three detectors arrive one after another, they will definitely be able to check the suspicious area inside and out.

If no abnormalities are found on the surface, use drilling equipment to drill into the area for exploration. Since it can be confirmed that there is something here, flaws will always be found.

According to experts' analysis, the only possibility is that it is hidden underground. Even if it is too deep to be excavated, there is a way to map it:

The Zhurong spacecraft carries an armed satellite equipped with many tungsten metal rods that can be released from Mars orbit to impact the ground.

By comparing the shock waves after the impact with the known approximate geological structure, as long as discontinuities or anomalies are found, the location can basically be locked.

Three months, three months of time. If nothing is found in three months with accurate positioning coordinates, it is either that the complexity of the situation is much greater than expected, or that the data is wrong and it is impossible to survey it even with all human imagination.

After all, it is on a planet tens of millions of kilometers away. If the power of the alien civilization is strong enough, it is impossible for the satellite and probe to gain nothing. At that time, we can only prepare for the astronauts to land.

Within 72 hours after landing, Firefly 1 focused on investigating the core area of ​​Plain Zero, conducting extremely high-density monitoring of soil, geomagnetism, and even gravity, but ultimately found nothing.

On the last night of Lin Ju's stay, when it was almost 22 p.m. and Lin Ju was about to return home, Firefly 1 was transmitting survey data back again, but an accident occurred.

The signal suddenly became extremely unstable. The signal strength of the northwest telemetry network dropped significantly and was soon lost. Then the southern monitoring network, and soon even the offshore long-range monitoring ship sent an abnormal report.

Within about a minute, several monitoring stations were severely interfered with one after another.

A small-scale riot immediately broke out in the entire control room. The staff had never encountered such a situation before, and they reacted and began to investigate according to emergency procedures.

Shen Zuozhou, who was enduring the pain with Lin Ju, suddenly woke up and rushed to the monitor to check the situation.

Lin Ju did not dare to delay and instantly thought of many possibilities.

"what's the situation!"

Shen Zuozhou shouted and questioned the operator, who quickly replied:
"The signal strength is decreasing rapidly. No, I can't even find a signal. Maybe the antenna is tilted..."

"how come!"

Mars is now hundreds of millions of kilometers away from the Earth. The signal needs to be strengthened by the high-gain antenna "off Mars", and then the antenna needs to be firmly locked to the direction of the Earth under the action of the ultra-high precision gyroscope. If it deviates even a little bit, it will indeed deviate to an unknown direction.

But Shen Zuozhou keenly sensed that something was wrong. If the antenna was offset, the signal would be interrupted immediately after a flash, but this was obviously not the case this time.

Did an alien civilization intervene and interfere with the signal transmission? Did Yinghuo 1 discover anything?
The staff in the control room were still desperately urging each monitoring station, but they found that even the satellite communication signal had encountered problems and they could not issue commands smoothly.

It has been three or four minutes since the situation occurred, and the control room has lost connection with almost all satellites. Only a few are still working, but they are also very unstable.

Shen Zuozhou's mind was working rapidly, and he was even ready to contact his superiors and sound the alarm at any time.

He first asked the control room to check the receiving equipment, starting with the ground where the problem was most likely to occur, and directed the staff to switch to the backup system, but still to no avail.

After several attempts, the monitoring network still did not respond, and Shen Zuozhou realized the seriousness of the matter.

"back to normal!"

The staff suddenly shouted in surprise that after the signal was intermittently interfered for nearly ten minutes, the Northwest monitoring network that was interfered with first returned to normal.

The other monitoring stations remained the same, but the Northwest Monitoring Station continued to transmit, and it was still stable, but the content of the interfered part was lost.

Shen Zuozhou hurriedly picked up the phone, ready to inquire about the situation at several monitoring stations, but the phone rang first, and he subconsciously answered it:
"Hey?"

"This is the Ministry of National Defense! Just now, there was a sudden strong electromagnetic interference in the air above our country. The signals of many satellites were disrupted and cut off. At the same time, a giant unidentified celestial body was detected in low-Earth orbit!

We are already conducting an emergency investigation. Please take Lin Ju and move immediately to a safe area! I repeat, the interference still exists, and anything can happen! "

The phone call was not loud, and Lin Ju, who was standing by, could not hear it clearly. Looking at Shen Zuozhou's stunned expression, he asked:

"What's wrong? What's going on?"

Shen Zuozhou was still standing there in a daze, digesting the information from the other end of the phone. When he came to his senses, his hair immediately went cold. He dragged Lin Ju out without even having time to explain.

"Hurry, let's go to the basement, the army is coming soon!"

Lin Ju was unable to break free from him and had to be dragged out by force. Thinking of a possibility, he quickly took out his cell phone and saw that he had received an encrypted warning message. He immediately put it back and continued to move towards a safe area.

……

NACA, Robert hasn't experienced such a chaotic situation for a long time. Even when Artemis 2 lost contact, he was not as panicked as he is now.

He had originally received news from the Chinese and was preparing to take a large number of NACA senior executives on the trip, but suddenly received an emergency notice.

Now the headquarters was full of employees running around, and the phones in the office had not been heard ringing. He even faintly heard the sound of a helicopter outside.

——It’s not the end of the world, but it’s close.

"Yes, I'm Robert, we're investigating! Quickly, give us a few more minutes!"

After spewing out a series of words like a machine gun, Robert just hung up the phone, and a group of ferocious soldiers rushed into his office like a hurricane. Then McMaster, who was in disheveled clothes, appeared in front of him and roared almost like a roar:

"Hurry up and make that damn thing stop. If it continues like this, a world war will break out! The Chinese have issued an emergency mobilization order, and all their warships have begun preparing to leave the port!"

Twenty minutes ago, McMaster, who had just entered the office to drink coffee and enjoy dessert, suddenly heard a loud noise. The office door was directly knocked open by a burly Marine, who dragged him onto the "doomsday helicopter" on the roof without saying anything.

There are helicopters specially prepared for the most urgent emergencies in the Presidential Palace and the Pentagon. The crews are on standby at all times and can transfer important personnel in the shortest time possible.

However, according to its setting conditions, everyone called it the "Doomsday helicopter" because it could only be activated in the event of a nuclear war. McMaster, who was surrounded by burly soldiers and almost off the ground, felt as if he had teleported into the already activated helicopter. Then the intelligence officer who had boarded the helicopter first informed him of the situation:

"The Chinese have just sent us four urgent calls on the hotline, asking whether we have carried out large-scale electromagnetic interference in their territory, and said that they are ready to deal with any emergency.

We are still verifying the situation, but the Far East has already sent a warning. They have just detected a large number of secret messages sent from inland long-wave radio stations, and initially determined that the targets are nuclear submarines and warships.

At the same time, multiple radar stations discovered that they had begun to mobilize aircraft on a large scale. The electromagnetic signals were unprecedentedly dense, which was most likely an emergency mobilization order! "

McMaster, who knew the situation, was instantly shocked. Was it a large-scale electromagnetic interference in the country? Or was it the electromagnetic interference that forced the Chinese to send urgent telegrams and start mobilizing the army?

He could guarantee that the Pentagon had never planned such an action. He had no time to think about the inside story and quickly responded to the intelligence officer:
“Reply to them immediately that we are not carrying out any actions and have no intention of starting a war!

Also, find out what the electromagnetic interference is, and immediately mobilize the Far East garrison and the Pacific Fleet!"

Intelligence officer: "Our operator has responded, and the Far East has automatically entered a state of emergency..."

His words were suddenly interrupted by the ringing of the satellite phone, and after the call was connected, there was another series of messages:

Not only the Chinese, but also Lucia sent inquiries through the emergency hotline, and also claimed that mobilization has begun, saying that Lucia is not afraid of any challenge;
The authorities of the peninsula and the island countries also called to ask who started the war, indicating that satellite signals had been paralyzed on a large scale and that they had entered a defensive state.

Only the Pentagon itself is still confused. It seems that something major has happened in the Western Pacific, and even a war has started?

Just when McMaster was so anxious that he wanted to jump out of the helicopter, reliable news finally came:

The Intelligence Agency has basically found the source, it was the chaos caused by NACA!
……

At around 9 a.m. Central Time, Artemis, which has been operating in low-Earth orbit for more than ten days and carefully testing various functions, will finally conduct its first reflector surface deployment test.

In the past period of time, the ground has been constantly carrying out precise inspections on the large node controllers that control nearly one million square meters and tens of thousands of it. Otherwise, a problem will cause wrinkles on the reflective surface, and if not handled properly, it will lead to a tragedy of large-scale tearing.

Before the launch, they had carefully confirmed that there were no problems, and the time chosen was also very delicate: at this time, Artemis was orbiting over the Eastern Hemisphere, close to the terminator and about to enter the dark side, and would not be affected by sunlight.

However, when unfolded, the reflective surface will be aimed at the sun on the horizon, and the light pressure will be sensed through a window period of less than 10 minutes to accurately determine whether the emitting surface is warped or deformed.

If an accident occurs, this little sunlight will not cause too much orbital deviation. Artemis will automatically retract the reflective surface on the dark side to control the accident within a certain range.

Everything went smoothly, Artemis started very smoothly and did not receive any error signals.

However, just one minute later, Artemis suddenly showed that the attitude system was abnormal, the external input signal was too large, and it automatically entered the protection program.

Of course, the ground understood the meaning of this information. Artemis has two attitude adjustment systems, one is a small rocket engine and conventional gas RCS thruster, and the other is an ion thruster and micro gas RCS system.

The first system is used in a retracted state for large-scale orbit raising or attitude adjustment. When Artemis is unfolded, the huge reflective surface is quite fragile. Once the 0.0045mm stretched aluminum foil is subjected to uneven force, it may be deformed and wrinkled at best, or even torn directly at worst.

At this time, only ion thrusters with extremely gentle thrust, that is, electric thrusters, can be used. There are many such ion thrusters distributed on the memory alloy skeleton nodes of the entire Artemis, which can apply adjustments to the reflective surface quite gently.

If an accident occurs on the reflective surface, the second attitude system will no longer be able to cope with the force of light pressure and will simply shut down automatically to protect the fragile reflective surface. The first attitude adjustment system will not be activated.

This is what is happening now. Artemis finds that the load brought by the light pressure is too strong, and the computer triggers an alarm to execute a protection program to avoid a second accident.

This also means that Artemis will be completely out of control, allowing its posture to change freely, and will not try to shrink back to the original state until the external interference decreases.

The entire Artemis team had not anticipated this situation at all and was immediately stunned and prepared to get more information.

However, the signal soon became unstable and intermittent. Neither the ground monitoring station nor the satellite could receive a stable signal, and the connection was almost completely cut off.

At this time they were still unclear about what had caused the situation, but that was Artemis, whose value was higher than her weight in gold, so they hurriedly reported to Robert who was about to come over to check the situation.

The situation had not improved when Robert arrived. Just as everyone's mood began to become heavy and they were worried that NACA would suffer unprecedented huge losses, emergency calls began to ring.

The presidential palace, the Pentagon, and the bigwigs at the dock were all frantically calling NACA to ask what was going on.

Robert's mind was in a mess at this moment. He had no idea what was going on. Then he saw an employee suddenly jumped up with a loud shout:
"It's over, Artemis is tumbling!"

Before everyone realized what he was talking about, they heard him jump onto the table and explain impatiently:

"Artemis's unfolding process is irreversible! The system that resists the sun's light pressure is abnormally shut down. Regardless of whether it is fully unfolded or not, it will at least receive most of the light pressure, and will rotate or even roll over due to the uneven force that has not been corrected!

Gentlemen, it is a 250-acre super reflective surface that reflects sunlight as well as other electromagnetic waves. Its curved surface focuses and reflects all electromagnetic waves, including visible light, just like a giant light bulb!"

All those present were technicians, and they immediately understood what he meant.

Light is also a type of electromagnetic wave. Just like when a flashlight is pointed at a mirror, the light will be reflected and interfere with the environment. The electromagnetic signals near low-Earth orbit will also be subject to similar interference and reflected by Artemis.

The area of ​​Artemis itself is of course a drop in the bucket compared to the Earth, but its reflective area is terrifyingly large. After a special optimized design, it will collect as much light as possible and project it onto the surface, with a maximum impact range of more than 300 kilometers!

If it is sunlight, it is not so bad. But if it is a signal forwarded by a high-power communication satellite or spacecraft, it will be ruined if it is received by it:
The super-large curved surface is like an unprecedented high-gain antenna, which super-amplifies the received signal and twists its direction, further interfering with other surrounding signals.

This was taken into consideration in the early stages of Artemis development, but at the time NACA believed that it was operating at a geostationary orbit and would not cause much interference to the low-Earth orbit from above. It could even be considered to use this to develop a low-cost broadcasting network, but they had not yet figured out how to use it.

However, in low-Earth orbit, this characteristic becomes a disaster. Both civilian communications and military satellites have extremely dense communications at this altitude. The power of Artemis becomes extremely terrifying, and even if only a part of it is disrupted, the impact will be huge.

Even though NACA initially believed that the 10-minute sunlight window would not cause any major accidents, if the attitude control system was down, Artemis would continue to disrupt the electromagnetic environment in low-Earth orbit until contact was restored, like a big light bulb blinding the eyes in the dark.

And when it began to roll uncontrollably, its loss of contact became understandable: the high-orbit satellite and the ground antenna could no longer align its antenna!
This is a terrible vicious cycle. Apart from hoping that Artemis will recover on her own, the only way to break the deadlock is to shoot it down with missiles!
Robert could fully imagine the current situation. Artemis was likely to have caused serious interference to military satellites in low orbit in the Eastern Hemisphere, and even had a large-scale impact on civilian satellites. For countries in those places, this situation was basically the prelude to an imagined nuclear war.

First electromagnetic interference destroys the satellite, and the next step is missiles?

If their early warning system was not blind and deaf, it would immediately issue the highest warning and prepare for war!

So when Robert saw McMaster, he even felt a little helpless, because NACA could do nothing at all!
He can only pray that the deterrence system built up over half a century will be effective, that the mutual trust among all parties will not be so deteriorating that it will be terribly deteriorating, and that all parties will be able to restrain their fears and take great risks and not shoot first.

As long as one party loses patience, it will be a chain reaction that can never be stopped!

(End of this chapter)