Technology's opening live broadcast to build rockets

Seeing Du Xingyu's excitement about starting work, Xu Lianqiu showed an expression of "Sure enough," she wanted to say that in order to celebrate Du Xingyu becoming an academician, they would go out for a meal or something, but before she could say anything, Du Xingyu had already started Already working.

"Lianqiu, help me call someone for a meeting in the conference room!" Du Xingyu is already preparing documents. He has been developing a Mars spacecraft on the simulator these days and has made some gains.

"OK!" Xu Lianqiu was also unambiguous and immediately notified the main members of the Mars mission team to go to the conference room to discuss the Mars landing plan.

In the conference room, Du Xingyu and everyone discussed the execution plan of the Mars mission.

"There are still six months left before the window period. In six months, the most difficult thing is to manufacture the Mars spacecraft." said team member Zhang Yan. He had previously cooperated with Du Xingyu to develop aerospace aircraft and also participated in the design of the lunar spacecraft.

"The main design of the spacecraft can refer to the previous Taiyin lunar spacecraft." Du Xingyu said, "The only area that needs improvement is power and endurance! I have a preliminary plan, which is to use nuclear thermal and nuclear electric hybrid propulsion..."

Du Xingyu explained his simulated plan to everyone, "The nuclear ion thruster is the core part of the entire plan. As long as the test run of the nuclear ion thruster is completed, I don't think there will be much problem in other aspects."

Everyone has experience in the design of the main body of the spacecraft, the command module, the propulsion module, the landing module and other parts, and the progress this time is much faster than before.

Experiments on Mars landing and Mars surface survival simulation were also handed over to a specialized team.

Du Xingyu and many people in the team are already acquaintances, and everyone is already accustomed to his ideas and ways of doing things. The Mars spacecraft project was finalized in the shortest possible time.

"Yinghuo Mars Spacecraft" is the name they determined for the Mars spacecraft. Du Xingyu serves as the chief design engineer, He Jingcheng serves as the chief commander of the Mars landing mission, and everyone else performs their duties.

…

On the technology simulator, Du Xingyu is continuing the research and development of nuclear ion thrusters.

At this time, the basic design structure of the nuclear particle thruster had been developed by him, and the nuclear reactor, circulating cooling, electric energy conversion system, and radiation protection device had all been designed.

Using the electrical energy converted from nuclear energy, a continuous electromagnetic field can be generated in the engine to accelerate the ions ionized from the working medium.

"Invest one hundred thousand energy points to simulate a radio frequency generator." In Du Xingyu's mind, he constructed a radio frequency generator that was different from conventional ion thrusters.

Conventional ion thrusters directly use electromagnetic fields to accelerate ions to obtain high specific impulse and trace thrust. However, in the nuclear ion thruster designed by Du Xingyu, the radio frequency generator will heat the ions to one million degrees Celsius, allowing these ions to obtain more Energy, so that when they rush out of the magnetic field, they will also obtain a higher specific impulse, that is, they produce more impulse per unit of propellant.

The specific impulse of an ion thruster is much better than that of a conventional rocket thruster, but its thrust is unusually small. On Earth, the thrust of an ion thruster would be almost negligible.

But when the ion thruster is in a vacuum where the planet's gravity is small and there is no air resistance, it will continue to accelerate the spacecraft and do things that conventional thrusters cannot do.

In the simulator, high-speed ion flow is ejected from the tail of the thruster, generating ultra-high acceleration for the ion thruster. This reaction continues.

Technology Simulator: "The simulation is successful, do you want to start the crisis simulation?"

"Turn on!" Du Xingyu once again put in the energy point and began to simulate the state of the ion thruster in various crisis situations.

…

Two months later, at the China Atomic Energy Research Institute, the small nuclear fission reactor materials used for the nuclear ion thruster were ready and were sent to the Spacecraft Research Institute in a special-grade vehicle.

Here, all materials and parts for the nuclear ion thruster are already in place, just waiting for the addition of the small nuclear fission reactor.

In the test workshop, the staff used automated equipment to assemble the nuclear ion thruster according to the structural diagram. Experts from the space agency were waiting patiently here.

After the assembly is completed, it is time to test the nuclear ion thruster! Success or failure is directly related to whether this mission can carry out a manned landing on Mars!

"The nuclear reactor should be able to discharge stably. The key lies in whether the electromagnetic field and radio frequency generator can continuously and stably control the ion injection!" Before the test run, Zhou Ziang, a veteran expert from the Institute of Atomic Energy, analyzed with everyone.

"Before us, no country has successfully completed this technology!" Liu Yuan said, "As long as the test run is completed today, we can break the international monopoly on ion thruster technology and move to new heights!"

"It would be great if the experiment was conducted in space. It is difficult for ground laboratories to simulate a vacuum state." Zhang Yan said with emotion.

The ion thruster has a large specific impulse, but a small thrust, and is easily disturbed in the ground environment. It’s just that the lunar base does not yet have suitable experimental equipment, so it can only be tested in the ground test workshop for the time being.

Others are nervously looking forward to it. If this is successful, the power and endurance of long-distance spaceships will no longer be restricted by humans, and they can explore further space!

"Report, the nuclear ion thruster has been assembled, all indicators are in good condition, and test runs can begin!" the workshop supervisor reported.

"Let's start!" After Du Xingyu said, everyone entered the control center. It was full of computers and instruments, and various data of the nuclear ion thruster could be observed in real time.

"Countdown to five, four, three, two, one! Start the nuclear ion thruster!" He Jingcheng shouted and pressed the start button.

As the control rods in the nuclear reactor slowly rise, neutrons bombard the americium nucleus, causing it to undergo a fission chain reaction, and powerful energy is released.

Through an efficient power converter, this energy is converted into electrical energy. At the same time, the liquid hydrogen circulation cooling system maintains the temperature of the device and prevents the temperature of the nuclear reactor from getting out of control.

A strong electromagnetic field has been generated and begins to ionize the working medium. Deuterium gas is ionized into a high-speed flow of positively charged ions. The frequency of the radio frequency generator is adjusted to be consistent with the rotation frequency of the ions, and the charged ions are heated to a high temperature of one million degrees Celsius in a short period of time.

Countless high-speed and high-energy ion streams are ejected from the tail of the ion thruster, generating an ultra-high specific impulse in an instant. The energy conversion efficiency is more than ten times that of conventional rocket thrusters!

"The reaction is stable and the high-speed ion flow is stable." He Jingcheng whispered in the control center.

No one said anything. A short-term ion flow does not mean that the test run has been successful. Sustained stability and long-term ion propulsion can be considered a success.

As time passed by, everyone seemed to be breathing easier.

Ten minutes later, it was still stable.

Thirty minutes, nothing unusual.

One hour is already the successful time point for the theoretical speculation of this test run. Everyone stood up in unison, waiting for the moment the results were announced.

Thanks for letting me accompany you to Hai Ku, Totoro, Mo Luo and Gui Hong for the reward.