Super technology leader

On October 24th, Pathfinder's "Voyager" rocket was launched on time, carrying humanity's first unmanned probe towards distant Mars.

The maiden flight of the "Voyager" super-heavy carrier rocket was very successful. The two booster rockets and one core-stage rocket of the same model were all successfully recovered and landed on the recovery ship converted from a merchant ship by Pathfinder Company.

Pathfinder Company has done a lot of work for this type of super rocket. Except for the near-equatorial launch site and dedicated rocket transport ship that are still under construction, everything else is almost ready.

And the rocket transport ship can temporarily use the national team's, so only the space launch site near the equator is left.

According to the plan, the construction progress of that launch site is very good, and it is estimated that it can be put into use before Tianxia's manned moon landing next year.

However, even if it is put into use, it will not launch Tianxia's first manned lunar landing spacecraft at his launch site. That is the patent of the national team, especially with the word "first". He does not intend to show any "heroism".

The first stage of "Voyager" and the booster of the same model were successfully recovered, and a feat was also completed on the same day, that is, the successful recovery of the second stage rocket for the first time.

After the second stage rocket shut down and separated, it fell down according to the predetermined trajectory. After reaching the predetermined position, the inflatable heat shield opened.

When it successfully splashed down in the predetermined sea area, this feat was produced.

The first inflatable heat shield of mankind successfully landed from space orbit!

It's still the kind that "carries cargo", not some kind of test.

There have been similar tests internationally before, but no country has succeeded.

Throwing it directly down from orbit failed.

Throwing it down in suborbital also resulted in more failures than successes.

This is the test result of other countries before Pathfinder Company's mission.

The outside world knows about this launch mission. Pathfinder Company has done very few tests on the rocket. They believe that Pathfinder is very pressed for time, and this success is a fluke.

The next time may not be so successful.

Launching rashly without testing will teach Pathfinder how to abide by strict testing systems in future "major accidents".

But only the engineers inside Pathfinder know that Tang Chao has succeeded again.

Pathfinder Company's technology is so advanced that it can omit many testing steps.

It's not that they are too arrogant, but because their technology has indeed reached this stage. If they don't do that, it will cause serious waste of resources and time.

As successful as the "Voyager" rocket is the first unmanned probe of mankind.

The 32-ton behemoth flew to Mars. This is definitely the largest Mars exploration device in human history. When it unfolded its solar wings and ignited the advanced ion engine array, the crew members of the two space stations clearly saw the blue plume ejected from the spacecraft and used cameras to record this spectacular scene.

Some people on Earth also recorded this scene, but they used astronomical telescopes, and the recorded scene was not very clear.

But this is enough to make people feel shocked.

Of course, what's even more shocking is yet to come. After the videos taken by the two space stations were reviewed by the space agency, they released the videos.

The clarity, the jet plume, the sci-fi blue light, it's amazing!

Ah, I'm ready!

In fact, Tianxia released it first, after all, this is a matter of face for Tianxia.

Originally, there was no problem with the Meruiken Space Agency, but now the government has intervened in many things, so the government has also seen it. As a result, they don't want to do publicity for Tianxia.

Even though they have said in various public occasions: "If aliens come, we should cooperate together."

But public occasions are public occasions, and privately is privately. Meruiken definitely does not want Tianxia to be good, and does not want to promote Tianxia.

But after Tianxia released the videos and high-definition images, if they don't release them, it would appear that they are stingy. This is very unfavorable in public opinion propaganda. When it comes to propaganda, Meruiken is a master among masters.

So they immediately released the videos and images taken by their side, and also included explanations from professionals, indicating that the power system of this spacecraft...is not bad.

Well, this is Meruiken's last reserve.

The voyage of this unmanned spacecraft shows that mankind has once again taken a step towards space, going further and further.

This means that the future of the solar system will become more and more lively.

All of this is actually related to that unknown probe.

Without it, humans would have reached this point, but definitely not so quickly.

It is precisely because of this external pressure that various countries, especially large countries with space conditions, will definitely develop the aerospace industry more vigorously while ensuring that the changes in people's livelihood conditions are not significant.

This has led to the current various large-scale aerospace plans, and they are much more aggressive than usual.

Even many dangerous projects are no longer concealed, or are not concealed so deeply. After all, with the big cover of "aliens", any dangerous content can be directly attributed to the purpose of "dealing with aliens".

During this period of time, some countries have not only launched some satellites, but also increased the number of satellites to be launched in the future by several orders of magnitude.

It is even difficult to determine whether some of them are the commercial satellites they are talking about. Many people suspect that weapons have been installed on those satellites.

People in the past would definitely be very frightened, but now...

"To deal with aliens, all of this is worth it."

Some people said.

As for whether there are forces behind promoting this topic, that is not known.

Tang Chao didn't expect that he originally hoped to use this opportunity to promote international cooperation between countries, but he didn't expect it to be each doing their own thing.

On the surface, there is a trend of cooperation, but privately, it seems that the division is more serious.

Damn it, Tang Chao doesn't know what to say.

Humans are really too pretentious.

In space, it is another situation.

In the orbit of Mars, a broken spaceship suddenly appeared!

"Ah——"

"This should be the last time. After this flicker, the remaining energy should be exhausted."

"Does that mean we are safe? There will be no more accidental flickers?"

"That's right, we are safe and don't have to worry about flickering into a star and being burned."

"That's good... Wait, it seems we have been captured by gravity..."

"What do you mean? Aren't we already in the gravitational field of this star?"

The little green men in the broken spaceship cabin were talking about various information in a mess. Soon they noticed the huge red planet outside the porthole.

In the solar system, this planet is called Mars.

They think it is very similar to the "Duna" of the Can star system. They have already established a manufacturing base on it.

"We have been captured by the planet."

"Not the third one we expected, but the fourth one. It doesn't seem very suitable for biological survival."

"It doesn't matter, this one is much better than the other ones. The probability that we can survive on it for a long time... is not small."

"I think we should think about the current situation. We have no power and have been captured by the gravitational field of a planet. This means..."

"This means we are going to crash!"

"Ah——"

The crash speed of this spaceship is much faster than that of a non-powered artificial satellite. A non-powered artificial satellite takes months or even years to crash, but this spaceship is rushing towards the red planet at a very large angle of entry.

"Karara~ Karara~"

I don't know what unfixed or broken parts are colliding rapidly. The four little green men are ready for the crash. If anything goes wrong, they will eject themselves and open their parachutes to land.

"Bang~"

"Rumble~"

With a loud noise, the spaceship vibrated violently and began to rotate!

The little green men shouted even more exaggeratedly.

Outside the spaceship, the crashing spaceship directly hit a Mars probe. The probe instantly turned into fragments and fell towards Mars with the broken spaceship.

And in those fragments, the stars and stripes on a certain fragment are clearly visible.

At this moment, the shouting captain stopped shouting, "Hey, we received a short-range communication signal, it's actually Probe 34!"

These words directly made the other three little green men quiet.

"Really? Let me see!"

"It's actually true, it's really Probe 34, but its condition is not good, and many modules have problems."

"It's also crashing, but it will crash much longer than us."

"Is that all you thought of?"

Captain Linus looked at them angrily: "Probe 34 is also here, and arrived before us, which proves that the wormhole is not a one-time thing, it is likely to be a one-way channel, which also means that we can wait for subsequent fleets!"

"Yes, that's right!"

"WOOOOO!"

The little green men were excited again, and even the process of rotating and falling began to become joyful.

They were happy, but the earthlings were not happy, especially the Meruiken.

After the communication delay time passed, the Meruiken Space Agency received bad news.

Their Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission probe, or MAVEN for short, lost contact.

This probe was launched a few years ago to investigate the mystery of the disappearance of the Martian atmosphere and to find the source of water and carbon dioxide that Mars had in its early days.

It is very important to the Meruiken Space Agency. Since they lost interest in the moon, they have focused on Mars, so every probe is very important.

The MAVEN Mars probe spends most of its time orbiting Mars, occasionally passing through the outer edge of the Martian atmosphere, using 8 instruments to measure gases and monitor surrounding conditions.

These measurements can help researchers understand how uninterrupted solar particle winds, asteroid impacts, and interactions with chemicals on the Martian surface have depleted water and other gases in the atmosphere over billions of years.

Researchers can model the detected data. By combining these models with information they know about how the sun changes over time, researchers can infer the density and composition of the Martian atmosphere at different historical periods.

This is very important for exploring whether there was once life on Mars, and it is also an important research project for them.

Not to mention that it also relayed and guided the "Perseverance" Mars rover launched last summer in February this year, and specially adjusted its orbit for the relay mission.

Such an important orbital probe lost contact 10 minutes ago.

The Meruiken Space Mission Center was in chaos.

"What's going on, is it a technical problem?"

"Is it a solar storm? No, it's not a solar storm, the sun has been very well-behaved during this time!"

"Perhaps it was the alien probe, it attacked our probe!"

"Ah, this, it's not impossible, after all, it's an alien probe, we don't know what's installed on it."

"Could it be a collision? Whether it's a meteorite, garbage, debris, fragments, everything possible."

"I don't know, there is too little information, we need more information!"

"What about the other probes, they are all aimed at Mars orbit now, see if they have found anything?"

"Yes, yes, yes, bring over the data from other probes!"

Fortunately, the chaos was only temporary. After thinking about all the possibilities, the technicians rushed to verify. After a while, the chaotic shouts were less, and there was more order.

It's just that the order didn't last long, because none of the data they found had any findings.

Not only was there nothing about this incident, but there was also no clue about the previous task of searching for unknown probes.

Fortunately, the probe that lost contact was not the one they secretly changed the orbit of. If it was that one, they would probably vomit blood.

Okay, this one is about the same.

Feeling uncomfortable in my heart.

In addition to the two they have left in orbit, they also checked the Petroleum Alliance probe and the Peacock Country probe that have control rights, and there was no news either.

The two of Europa are negotiating, and it is estimated that they will be able to get the data in a while.

The rest is Tianxia's Tianwen-1 probe.

Tianxia updates the information searched by Tianwen-1 every night at 12 o'clock, but Meruiken still feels that Tianxia Aerospace Agency is hiding something, because that's what they do.

The information obtained by the probe they secretly launched has never been disclosed to other organizations.

In fact, the Tianwen-1 probe really had a major discovery today, but it was not yet time to upload today's data, and others did not know it yet.

Just when Meruiken received the lost contact signal from that probe, Tianxia obtained some valuable information at the same time. After a few more minutes, they obtained a photo!

It was a photo of the probe. Although it was not high-definition and the details could not be seen clearly, only a outline could be seen, it was enough for comparison.

After comparison, they found that the probe in the photo did not belong to any probe that humans had launched.

"That's right, that's it!"

"We found it! We found it!"

"Quick, control Tianwen-1 to get closer, we need a clearer image!"

"Understood!"

"Xiao Li, notify the heads of all departments to have a meeting!"

"Understood!"

The Tianxia Aerospace Center also quickly mobilized.

This matter was of utmost importance. Even though there were prior agreements in the United Nations, Tianxia still needed to carefully consider it once it was actually found.

During the meeting, the process of the Tianwen-1 probe discovering the mysterious probe was transmitted.

A key point was that the mysterious probe had actively sent some additional information.

Before receiving this information, Tianwen-1 had already located the vicinity based on the previous information.

Upon receiving this new information, Tianwen-1 urgently calculated and then quickly adjusted its orbit and direction, pinpointing the exact location.

Instantly, it captured the first photo of this mysterious probe!

Two-in-one