Reborn in 2011, I am the chief designer of aerospace.

Another long, deathly silence followed.

"It was designed to be in orbit for a year, and now it's been twelfth year. The system is completely broken. It's now just a real pile of space junk."

"That's still better than waiting up there and dying of boredom," Song Xingye couldn't help but say.

"It's no use," the R-country man replied, the signal now crackling with static interference. "We can't detach from the dock, my friend. The docking ring is completely rusted and welded to the Mirusa. You can't break it apart even with a sledgehammer."

"The signal's about to drop, bro," Song Xingye said quickly. "I have to log off now. Hang in there, bro."

"Yes," the R-country man gave a wry smile, "where else can we go but 'hang ourselves' on this?"

Then only the deathly silence of radio waves remained on the channel.

"The signal has disappeared over the horizon," Song Xingye explained, turning his head. "If we had a joint data relay agreement, I could have forwarded the communication, but for now, this is the only way."

Sheng Tianhong had not realized that his Russian counterparts' situation had deteriorated to this extent, but he knew in his heart that they were powerless to help them and the R countrymen could only find a solution themselves.

"Do you contact each other like this every day?" he asked.

Chatting with another space station using amateur radio frequencies is a rather hardcore pastime, but it's not explicitly prohibited in the regulations.

Song Xingye nodded: "As long as they are within sight, it's fine."

He specifically mentioned those few R country people, saying that they are definitely the most open-minded and loyal friends in the world. Although their space station is small and cramped and has a pitifully small budget, it is still a proper space station.

What's most admirable is that these guys have managed to keep the space station running like this today using nothing more than old paperclips and broken rubber bands.

He paused for a moment, gritted his teeth, and continued, "If no one else cares, then I'll go and save them."

"How do you plan to save them?" Sheng Tianhong asked in return.

"I will go and bring them back."

Upon hearing this, Sheng Tianhong couldn't help but chuckle softly.

"Okay," he said dismissively, "then go ahead."

On the space station, dealing with garbage is a major problem.

Garbage accumulates every moment: food packaging boxes, food scraps, used paper scraps, human excrement, damaged equipment parts, torn underwear, discarded chemical solvents, vomit bags filled with vomit, shaving bags, vacuum cleaner filters, hygiene products, used sponges, discarded biological sample containers, petri dishes covered with dead bacteria, and even wastewater that is too polluted to be recycled.

All the trash is accumulating at a visible rate. Every time a cargo ship docks, it brings a massive amount of new supplies, but all of it eventually becomes new trash.

A small portion of the trash can be loaded onto the spacecraft and brought back to Earth, but the total amount of trash and wastewater generated by the space station is far greater than the meager downlink carrying capacity of the manned return capsule.

Trash should never be thrown directly into space to save time. If it is simply pushed out of the hatch, the waste will remain in the same orbit as the space station, flying alongside it at an orbital speed of 40,000 kilometers per hour, eventually turning into deadly micrometeorite fragments.

Even wastewater cannot be discharged directly, because the core value of the space station lies in the pure high-vacuum environment around it. If wastewater is dumped anywhere, it will immediately pollute the surrounding area and instantly reduce the scientific research value of the entire space station to zero.

Therefore, they use the "rope-tying" method to dispose of garbage.

The physical principle of this system is actually very simple: all the garbage accumulated over a month is stuffed into a huge plastic processing bag, with one end of the bag connected to a roll of microfiber rope.

The garbage bag was then ejected from the airlock at the bottom, and a small backward thrust was applied to it by a robotic arm. Once the "garbage satellite" was released from the airlock, it entered independent flight mode. However, because it was connected to the space station by a cable, its orbit was lowered (the lower the orbit, the faster the angular velocity).

Therefore, the bag of trash will gradually move towards the front of the space station, and in the process, it will continuously pull out the fiber optic cables on the drum. At this time, the brakes on the drum will apply resistance to pull the trash back, and the result of the resistance dragging is that it will force its track to drop further.

When the 20-kilometer-long microfiber cable is fully extended, this "garbage satellite" will hover steadily directly below the space station like a pendulum, with the taut cable exerting a strong centripetal pull on the garbage.

Immediately afterwards, the cable was cut with a single stroke.

The moment the cable is cut, the bag of trash will lose its traction and fall directly into a lower orbit. Under the influence of orbital mechanics, the perigee of its new orbit will be seven times lower than the original space station orbit by the length of the tether.

In other words, if left to float freely, it will be flung to a point 140 kilometers below the space station. However, at an altitude of 140 kilometers below the space station, it will inevitably brush past Earth's dense atmosphere, and any object in that orbit will only be reduced to a fleeting fireball.

And so, this trash became a fleeting shooting star on the horizon. They were swiftly and cleanly returned to their place of origin, Earth.

This method of removal is far more efficient than using rockets. It consumes no fuel and requires no complex systems. All it needs is a microfiber rope, and its technological sophistication is comparable to that of a fishing rod used for sea fishing.

When Sheng Tianhong served as the station commander, he had just completed a garbage removal mission. This was actually a delicate task that required considerable skill. If not handled properly, it could easily lead to tangled cables or a violent shaking state similar to "jumping rope".

The most fatal scenario would be a complete failure of the braking system, causing the cable to be released too quickly and lose tension. It would then snap back violently like a giant rubber band, pulling on the two-ton garbage bag that resembled a "breaching ball" and smashing countless deadly holes into the space station.

After he finished dealing with the trash and returned to the rest area, he found Song Xingye and several other people having a lively discussion.

"Hello, Song Xingye," he greeted.

"Sheng Tianhong," Song Xingye replied.

He was wearing a T-shirt that read "High-energy physicist with extraordinary charm," and one toe skillfully hooked onto a fixing ring to prevent his body from drifting, making him float in mid-air.

His body posture was perpendicular to Sheng Tianhong's, forming a ninety-degree angle. Although Sheng Tianhong was still somewhat unaccustomed to the peculiar perspective in this weightless environment, it was not a problem.

"What do you think?"

What do you think?

Of course, it's about rescue.

Sheng Tianhong blinked: "Sorry, I didn't understand what you said."

"They're from R country, buddy," Song Xingye said. "We're going to rescue those astronauts."

Sheng Tianhong shrugged: "Don't joke around, of course not."

Song Xingye shook his head, and with his movement, his body began to twist violently in mid-air. His toes, which were originally attached to the anchor ring, slipped, and he immediately lost control.

"If we don't go, no one will go to rescue them," he said, steadying himself. "Their ship is leaking fuel and can only last five days at most, six at most. Who can get there in that time? The Russians can't do it themselves; the last explosion wrecked their thrusters, and it will take at least six months to restore their launch capability."

The Eastern Kingdom is no match either. We only have four spaceships in total. Two are on missions and there's no time to withdraw and redeploy them. The other two are undergoing major repairs and are stuck on the ground, unable to move.

We can't count on Country A's space agency either; launches from their launch site simply can't cut into that orbital plane. So, if we don't go, who else can save us?

"Stop playing dumb," Sheng Tianhong retorted. "We can't fly there from here at all. We're on completely different orbital planes."

Song Xingye grinned: "The crew return capsule can do that."

Sheng Tianhong shook his head vigorously, and had to hold onto a circular handrail tightly to keep himself from drifting away.

"The required ΔV for the trajectory change is far from sufficient; it's not even half of what it should be!"

Song Xingye nodded in agreement: "It's definitely not enough, so we have to use some clever tricks, we have to be very, very clever."

As it turns out, Song Xingye was indeed a genius.

The crew return capsule is a miniature lifting body spacecraft that can accommodate four people. Its original purpose was to serve as a space ambulance to quickly transport injured astronauts back to Earth in emergencies.

Although it is equipped with an off-orbit engine for deorbiting, its fuel reserves are extremely limited and far from sufficient to complete the large-scale orbital maneuvers required to enter the orbit of the Russian spacecraft.

It's important to understand that changing the orbital inclination is an extremely propellant-consuming operation. Even if all the fuel in the space station were drained and poured into this small spacecraft, it still wouldn't be enough for it to reach the correct orbital plane.

Song Xingye's plan was to use a tethering system, a device originally used to throw space debris into the atmosphere, to launch the crew return capsule like a hammer.

After calculation, he discovered that the 400-kilometer-long rope, twenty times the length of the garbage dump, was long enough to launch the small lifting body to an apogee orbit 5,000 kilometers above the Earth.

"It does go through the Van Allen radiation belts," he explained, "but I was only inside for less than an hour, so the radiation dose was negligible."

Once at apogee, he will ignite the return capsule's engines and launch two solid rocket boosters perpendicular to the orbit, which were salvaged from the perigee booster module of a satellite being repaired on the space station.

As he emphasized, the core of this plan is that before attempting to change the orbital plane, the orbit must first be raised; the farther away from Earth, the less energy is required to change the orbit.

The 5,000-kilometer altitude advantage provided by the rope-launched launch will be the key to breaking the deadlock.

Sheng Tianhong closed his eyes, trying to construct the orbital model in his mind; he had never been good at mental calculations. Five thousand kilometers, slightly smaller than the Earth's radius.

"This is still not enough," he said, opening his eyes.

"That's right," Song Xingye said, "not enough, far from it, so the real show is coming up. The return capsule will hurtle towards Earth from 5,000 kilometers away, carrying a huge amount of excess kinetic energy, which will form a large elliptical orbit. I will cut directly into the atmosphere to decelerate aerodynamically."

But the key is, I not only need to decelerate, the reentry capsule is a lifting body structure, right? I'll make it fly sideways in the atmosphere, converting lift into a tilt vector, so I can use aerodynamic force to change the orbital plane! After two atmospheric crossings, the orbit not only becomes circular, but I also get an extra orbital maneuver—it's incredibly easy!

"What the hell?" Sheng Tianhong blurted out, "Is this really going to work?"

In the weightless environment, Song Xingye lazily did a somersault. As soon as he finished speaking, he was already hanging upside down in the center of the lounge, with his feet just touching the computer desk.

He tapped the keyboard with his toe, and the screen instantly lit up. Song Xingye grinned smugly.

"Believe it or not, I've already run a simulation on the computer, and the data is perfect."

Sheng Tianhong nodded. He suddenly realized that Song Xingye's long-winded explanation wasn't actually about finding someone to verify the data; this guy had absolute confidence in his calculations. So what was he really after?

"Are you asking me for permission to use CRV?"

Song Xingye shook his head: "Sheng Tianhong, I'm not asking for your permission. Whether you approve it or not, I'm going."

"If you start the CRV without permission," Sheng Tianhong warned him, "they will immediately kick you out of the Astronauts team and make sure you never even touch a rocket booster in your life."

"Maybe," he shrugged indifferently, "but whether or not I have permission, I can't just stand by and watch them die."

"Alright," Sheng Tianhong said in a deep voice, "Leave this to me."

Song Xingye reached out to stop her slowly spinning body and looked up at him in surprise.

"There's just one small detail," Sheng Tianhong added.

Song Xingye raised an eyebrow: "Tell me about it."

"The plan you proposed is extremely dangerous. It will most likely result in a crash and loss of life. Even if you succeed by sheer luck, the R people probably won't live to see it happen. This piecemeal, untested, half-baked plan is basically sending the pilot to his death. I will never let you take that risk."

"It's not that dangerous," Song Xingye argued. "Although my flight time as the commander is insufficient, the entire flight process will be taken over by the computer. If the system determines that the rendezvous cannot be completed, it will immediately abort the mission and automatically bring me back to Earth."

"No, you can't do it. You'll just be throwing your life away. I absolutely refuse to let you go," Sheng Tianhong said firmly. "I will fly this mission myself."

……

On the red Martian surface, everything appears desolate and silent, as the Mars exploration team carries out their self-rescue plan.

For most climbers, rappelling is the most tedious and boring part of the entire climbing process.

But for Sergei, it was the ultimate enjoyment, hanging in the dazzling air, feeling the call of the abyss, while expending far less energy than when climbing up.

Long before he officially got into rock climbing, he was already a seasoned rappeller. He used to drive to the canyon with his brother and rappel down the cliff. He was already very familiar with the sport!