Annihilation of the solar system

Director Yin walked worriedly from the conference room to the control room below. His face was as ugly as a newly tempered iron plate. He originally wanted to severely criticize the working group in charge of remote control, but how did it end up like this?

thing.

But when he walked into the operating area, he found that most of the backs of the blue shirts of the engineers standing in front of the rows of operating desks were soaked with sweat and stuck tightly to their backs.

Put it together. He sighed. The failure of these seven laser target calibrations was indeed not their fault.

The average diameter of the earth is about 12,000 kilometers, and the average distance between the earth and the moon is about 380,000 kilometers. The side length of the triangular gravitational wave detection array composed of the three stars of "Tai Chi" is 6.9 million kilometers.

If the triangular array composed of three "Tai Chi" satellites is compared to the triangular ball basket used to place billiard balls on the billiard table, then the size of the earth is equivalent to a cherry stone placed in the middle of the ball basket. And using laser

The size of the Taiji satellite, whose interference arms form a huge triangle, is less than one ten thousandth of the ball on the head of a ballpoint pen.

If it is on a two-dimensional plane and such a small satellite is used as the vertex to form an equilateral triangle array of this size, then all the engineers have to do is to continuously fine-tune the positions of the three vertices in the front, rear and left and right directions.

It doesn't take much effort to get an equilateral triangle with a side length 58 times the diameter of the earth. The difficulty will not be much greater than playing a tangram puzzle.

If you put these three vertices into a three-dimensional space, it is nothing more than adjusting the positions of the three vertices more subtly in the three directions of front and back, left and right, and up and down. Spend more time, and you will eventually get what you want.

An equilateral triangle. Its difficulty is about the same as carving a lotus flower on a peach stone.

However, if you place these three vertices in a sun-synchronous orbit in the universe and let them run at the second cosmic speed of 16.7 kilometers per second, things will become extremely complicated. Engineers need to adjust their positions.

Then there are simple up and down, front and back and left and right. Because changes in speed in any direction on the synchronous orbit will cause complex changes in orbit position.

That is, if you want the position of a satellite to move forward, if you simply turn on the attitude adjustment nozzle that sprays backward, it will appear that the satellite does move forward due to the increase in speed, but also due to the increase in orbital speed.

Move to the outside of the center of gravity. Such position adjustment needs to be performed on three satellites at the same time, and the difficulty can be imagined.

Originally, the change in orbital parameters caused by this position adjustment on the speed was very small and had no effect at all on ordinary satellites. However, these three satellites need to use their own laser transmitters to illuminate 6.9 million kilometers.

On the interferometer target of another satellite. The position of that target is only the size of an ordinary desk.

The most terrible thing is that this is not all the difficulties in forming the "Tai Chi" three-star detection array. The complexity and sophistication of aerospace engineering are far beyond ordinary people's imagination. Satellites in the universe will also be subject to the gravitational pull of various celestial bodies.

Movement. Among them, the biggest impact is the orbital precession on the satellite position caused by the gravitational superposition caused by the changing position of the earth and the moon.

Even unpredictable solar winds, random interstellar dust, and unknown reasons that we still don't know can cause satellite array laser target calibration to fail.

Not only that, because of the terrible curse of constant speed of light, when the ground command center controls the satellite via radio, there will be a delay of several seconds to more than ten seconds. This makes each operation command have a longer time lag between feedback.

In normal times, it would be nothing more than spending more time. But now, what they lack most is time.

With the superposition of these factors, completing this equilateral triangle with a side length of 6.9 million kilometers is as difficult as throwing a stone into a basket in Mohe on the Pamir Plateau.

What's more, they are running out of time. The picometer-level gravitational waves caused by the wormhole will pass through the detection array on a time scale of one thousandth of a second. Once they miss the detection window, they will never be able to detect this circle again.

Ripples in space-time traveling at the speed of light.

"How's the situation?" Although Director Yin had tried his best to adjust his emotions, there was still a compelling questioning in his words.

"At this distance, laser target calibration is too difficult. The single jet momentum of the satellite's attitude adjustment nozzle has approached or even exceeded the limit of the parameters affected by position changes. The reason for the failure of the first seven calibrations was because of the close to the end of the target.

During the precise irradiation process, the momentum of the minimum injection amount is too large, causing the laser irradiation position to deviate from the target."

Although Director Yin was anxious, he did not blame the engineer in front of him whose hair was soaked with sweat. Because he knew very well that what he and the people behind the glass curtain wall upstairs asked them to do was equivalent to using a ruler with centimeter accuracy.

To measure objects on the millimeter scale.

This observation mission that looks like the "Great Leap Forward" is not an absurd order from a certain leader in a moment of enthusiasm, nor is it a political mission to compete with each other. It is an observation related to the survival of all mankind.

"What step is it now?" Director Yin's tone was slightly lowered, but his anxiety could still be clearly heard in the trembling tone.

The engineer wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead with his sweat-stained sleeves.

"The satellite is being brought back into position for final accurate calibration."

"How confident are you in this proofreading?" Director Yin asked.

The engineer and several colleagues around him were stunned. Their eyes collided and they all lowered their heads. The engineer's Adam's apple squirmed and he swallowed hard.

"This...this depends on luck..." His voice trembled and gradually became smaller.

Director Yin clenched his fists and trembled slightly. The heavy black-rimmed glasses on the bridge of his nose couldn't help but slide down due to the shaking of his body. But he always suppressed the inexplicable anger because he knew that all this did not belong to a certain person.

It was caused by a mistake, but the situation no longer allowed for any mistakes.

"If... if... it is close to the accurately calibrated spatial position, and it happens to be coupled with the spatial displacement threshold generated by the minimum thrust of the attitude-adjusting nozzle, then... then it is still possible to succeed." The engineer continued to explain tremblingly.

.

Director Yin looked up at the blood-red countdown number 48 minutes, 35 seconds and 14 milliseconds at the top of the big screen. The constantly beating number was like an execution knife sliding back and forth on the whetstone. And the knife was almost there.

It has reached the neck of the entire human race.

When he saw the number changed to 48 minutes, 24 seconds and 12 milliseconds, a thought suddenly flashed in his mind.

“What is the spatial position error range of the first seven proofreadings?”

The engineer suddenly recovered from his dazed state. He turned around and tapped on the computer keyboard on the console, then pointed at the screen and said:

"According to statistical data, the deviation range is about 1/3 of the minimum value of each space position adjustment. In other words, in the final accurate calibration stage, because the minimum thrust of the satellite attitude adjustment nozzle is too large, we will always exceed the target.

And this excess distance is basically 1/3 of the minimum thrust displacement distance for satellite attitude adjustment."

Director Yin's clouded face flashed a rare light:

"Move the satellite back a certain distance from the fine calibration position, um..." He thought for a moment and continued:

"Displace to a distance 30 times the minimum deviation distance."

An expression of surprise immediately appeared on the engineer's face:

"You...you want to offset the 1/3 error range by using the least common multiple of the minimum adjustment distance!"

Director Yin nodded with satisfaction.