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It is worth mentioning that the Sky Survey Space Telescope project plan is indeed a big gamble if one only looks at the telescope itself without calculating the subsequent hidden gains brought about by potential industrial chain upgrades and technological upgrades.

Because once launched, it means that the follow-up can only be resigned to fate, and can only be controlled remotely. It is impossible to launch it like the old and beautiful Hubble Space Telescope. If the lens is not good, astronauts can go up to repair it, and regular maintenance can be done. Maintenance, replacement parts and so on.

After the space survey space telescope is launched, repairs and maintenance are not even thought about.

The reason why the Hubble Space Telescope can be maintained and repaired is because it revolves around the Earth in a low-Earth orbit about 600 kilometers from the surface. According to its design, the Sky Survey Space Telescope does not revolve around the Earth, but needs to fly to The L2 Lagrangian point 1.5 million kilometers away from the earth.

The distance between the earth and the moon is 380,000 kilometers, which is equivalent to about 4 times the distance between the earth and the moon. Therefore, once it is launched into space, there is no possibility of later maintenance.

It would not be an exaggeration to say it was a gamble.

The survey space telescope has to be sent to a position as far as 1.5 million kilometers, instead of being sent to low-Earth orbit like the Hubble Space Telescope. Naturally, the tasks are different, and the observation tasks undertaken are far beyond the Hubble Space Telescope.

It needs to observe the extremely low brightness stars, galaxies, planets, etc. in the universe.

In short, the Sky Survey Space Telescope observes the first galaxies that were born in the early days of the universe 13.5 billion years ago, and observes stars, exoplanets, and even sources of moons and asteroids in the solar system.

Its observation field of view is actually smaller than that of the Hubble Space Telescope. This is because many exoplanets have been found in the human astronomy community. Another task of the Survey Space Telescope is to target these discovered exoplanets and take The lens is adjusted to conduct more detailed observations on the space coordinates of these planets, so as to obtain more accurate data, such as analyzing the composition and structure of the planetary atmosphere through spectroscopy.

The observation capability of the Sky Survey Space Telescope is equivalent to putting a 2.5-watt night light on the moon, and then seeing the brightness of the night light from the ground is 20, then the Sky Survey Space Telescope finds the brightness of one-twentieth celestial bodies.

Therefore, in order to achieve such high observation conditions, many aspects are needed to cooperate.

The first is the space position. It is absolutely impossible to place the Hubble Space Telescope in a space position in low-Earth orbit, because the observation conditions of the survey space telescope are different. The Hubble Space Telescope sees visible light and ultraviolet light, as well as a little bit. Infrared observation capability, so the requirements for the brightness of the surrounding environment are not very high.

The most important thing is that the Hubble Space Telescope can be repaired, and it can be sent to people to replace parts, and the accuracy can also be improved.

However, the main focus of the sky survey space telescope is infrared observation capabilities. In order to see objects with extremely low brightness in infrared imaging, the surrounding environment needs to be very cold and very dark. If it revolves around the earth, it will definitely not work. The direct sunlight and the reflection of the earth Light will affect the observations of the Dao Sky Survey Space Telescope.

And the position of the sun-earth Lagrangian point L2 is very suitable, this position happens to be on a straight line between the sun and the earth, and the position of L2 point is in the shadow area behind the earth, the sky survey space telescope is in this shadow area Just can use the earth to block the direct sunlight of sunlight.

It is worth mentioning that the Lagrangian point is a special three-body problem, that is, when any two celestial bodies in the space are orbiting, there will be 5 points in the space where the third object can be placed. The relative position of the object and these two celestial bodies can always remain unchanged.

That is, the five Lagrangian points are in the position of gravitational balance, which can keep the objects at these points relatively stationary with the two celestial bodies. If spacecraft are placed at these points, they can also largely save fuel.

The sky survey space telescope needs to avoid sunlight. Of the five Lagrangian points, only L2 is the most suitable position, because the earth can block most of the sun's light, which can naturally greatly reduce the impact of sunlight on the sky survey space telescope. .

Then it can reduce fuel consumption, and can maintain a long working time in the shadow area of ​​the earth. According to the current design idea of ​​the survey space telescope, after the launch is successfully parked at the Lagrangian point L2 on the predetermined orbit, The remaining fuel can guarantee the working time of the telescope for fifteen years.

If the fuel is exhausted, there is absolutely no way to do it now, but to resign to fate.

However, there may be a way in the future. The Sky Survey Space Telescope is currently approved and is expected to be launched in 2021. The total working time is expected to be about 15 years. In other words, when its fuel is exhausted, it will be 2035. up.

In the span of twenty-five years, technological progress is certainly not comparable to today.

After 2035, it may be possible to use the advanced artificial intelligence technology and other auxiliary means at that time to carry out unmanned resupply operations, transport the resupply fuel directly to the L2 Lagrangian point 1.5 million kilometers away, and then give The survey space telescope will be resupplied, and then it can be renewed for another fifteen years or something.

This point is left blank in the current demonstration and design stage. Whether the technology can be realized after 25 years is left to the table, but this pit must be dug in advance.

At that time, if the conditions are not met, forget it. If the technical conditions can be met, if you don't prepare in advance now, then you can only stare blankly.

And Fang Hong knows that it can be done technically, so it is natural to prepare in advance.

After all, such a large-scale budget investment only takes 15 years, which is actually quite uneconomical when you think about it, but it can be used for a total of 30 years if it can be extended for another 15 years. Even if you can continue to extend the life of the survey telescope There is no need, because there will definitely be more advanced technology at that time, and this old antique will also be eliminated technically.

At that time, the best result should be to ship it back and put it on display in the astronomical museum.

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Monday, November 28.

The Natural Science Foundation of China held a press conference this morning, officially announcing the approval of the funding plan for the new scientific research project "Space Survey Telescope".

According to the disclosure of the spokesperson, the project plan will be formally established in early 2012 next year, and it is expected to be launched around 2020. It will take about eight to nine years. The budget required for the project is 5.5 billion yuan for the first phase. The total budget scale is 75 billion to 100 billion yuan.

When the spokesperson of the Natural Science Foundation disclosed the size of the budget at the press conference, all the media reporters in the audience were in an uproar, and even one of them had a problem with his ears and heard it wrong.

Getting a telescope to go up would cost such a sky-high price?

The domestic investment scale in the aerospace field for a whole year is only tens of billions, and your entire telescope will cost 100 billion yuan?

It's outrageous!

Do you want to be so capricious?

The news was quickly brought to the public's attention through reports from various media outlets, and immediately attracted a lot of attention, and controversy arose as expected.

do not understand!

The public doesn't understand at all, how much money does it take to get a telescope? Where did the money go?

But the Natural Science Foundation did not explain too much.

The domestic astronomy community and even the international astronomy community exploded with the announcement of this news, and foreign media also rushed to quote reports, which caused a huge sensation in the global astronomical academic community.

The budget scale reaches 75 billion to 100 billion yuan, which is 11.8 billion to 15.7 billion U.S. dollars excluding exchange rate changes. It is indeed an astronomical observation project, and even the budget is astronomical.

This figure is unbelievable even for foreigners.

As a research scholar engaged in this field, I feel both incredible and excited.

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