The military-industrial scientific research system of the academic master.

The invisible competition was unfolding in a race against time on both sides of the Pacific Ocean.

Late that night Beijing time, NASA held its first press conference after the incident, stating that as the original owner of the UARS satellite, it had merely provided the military with relevant orbital parameters, but due to relevant confidentiality clauses, it was completely unaware of the specific interception process.

Of course, if that were all, it would be nothing more than a dull operation of shifting the blame.

But at the end of the press conference, John Yambrick, director of the press center, suddenly replaced the spokesperson in the first half and announced that NASA was closely monitoring the space debris and would eliminate the threat to the International Space Station in the shortest possible time.

Although China was not mentioned directly during the entire speech, his words implied that he wanted to compete with the latter.

The media, which had been prepared for this situation, once again showed their interest in watching the fun.

The reporter from RT, which was founded just over a year ago, was blunt and asked the following question:

"Yesterday's anti-satellite test has caused such serious consequences that are difficult to reverse. Is NASA now preparing to launch another Standard Missile-3 to intercept it?"

Even though Yambrick has developed an extremely thick skin through years of work, he still couldn't hold back in the face of such a scene:

"Please pay attention to the wording of this reporter. I have just explained the relevant situation. NASA does not know the specific technical details of the anti-satellite interception process, nor does it have the function and preparation to use missile weapons. We will use safer and more effective means to ensure that the entire space debris is completely removed from the current high-risk orbit. As for whether to temporarily keep it in the disposal orbit or directly bring it into the atmosphere for destruction, it depends on the specific situation in the future."

The Times reporter, who had been the first to attack, was unwilling to lag behind:

"Mr. Spokesperson, I noticed that your statement just now did not include any specific cleanup strategy. So can it be said that NASA does not have a definite plan to deal with this issue yet, and is only preparing to temporarily calm public opinion?"

As a NASA spokesperson, Yambrick had never fought such an outrageous battle against the odds even when the Columbia space shuttle crashed three years ago, and he almost died of anger.

He couldn't help but roll his eyes, thinking that the Chinese Space Agency didn't provide any definite solutions, why don't you ask them?

Completely forgetting that China hasn't even held a press conference yet...

Of course, even though I thought so in my heart, I still had to maintain the most basic decency:

"In fact, NASA has been concerned about orbital safety for a long time. Even when the space shuttle was first designed, the function of cleaning up space debris was already taken into consideration. Of course, considering the danger of this process, we will not send astronauts to perform this mission. Instead, we will develop a more flexible and versatile unmanned aircraft. However, I am sorry that I cannot disclose more specific information."

At this point, Yambrick changed the subject:

"In addition, I need to emphasize that this is not the first time that the International Space Station has encountered the threat of space debris. In fact, there are more than 40000 pieces of space debris under our monitoring. Although some of them will slowly fall into the atmosphere over time, the speed at which new debris is generated is much faster than the speed at which old debris disappears."

"Whether from a technical or cost perspective, it is impossible for humans to carry out a separate cleanup mission for each piece of space debris. Therefore, fundamentally speaking, how to reduce the generation of space debris is what we should focus on in the next step. This is a responsibility that the whole world needs to face together. For this reason, NASA has decided to invest $14.6 billion in rocket reuse technology over the next five years..."

"..."

……

Know yourself and know your enemy, and you will never lose a hundred battles.

Although there are many follow-up research and development work to be done, the research and development team led by Chang Haonan still took the time to pay attention to NASA's statement at the press conference.

Watching Yambrick on the TV screen talking endlessly about the new technology of the future, Zhou Pingjian sighed with emotion:

"This American is indeed an expert at manipulating the media..."

Xing Muchun, who was temporarily pulled from the hypersonic team to serve as the chief subsystem designer, also nodded in agreement:

"Even in such a passive situation, they still found a way to break the deadlock. Not only did they play a trick of changing the concept and shifting the responsibility that clearly belonged to them to the whole world, they also successfully shifted the media's focus from the current crisis facing the space station to the future reusable spacecraft... Tsk tsk..."

Although Chang Haonan had anticipated this, he was still shocked by the other party's ability to confuse right and wrong.

I just finished a 40-day wedding leave, and I worked hard almost every day. Even an iron man can't avoid some holiday syndrome.

But thanks to NASA's assistance, he quickly recovered:

"It seems that the time left for us is shorter than expected... If possible, I hope to solve this problem before the end of the third quarter of this year... This will almost coincide with the completion of all tests and commissioning of the JF14 wind tunnel, so not too much time will be wasted."

"Third quarter?"

Zhou Pingjian thought he had prepared himself mentally, but when he heard the timeline, he still felt it was too crazy:

"Doesn't that mean only half a year?"

"Um……"

Chang Haonan nodded:

"Now that the technical idea has been determined, the next step is how to implement it... If the rope net capture solution is to be truly put into use, there are several prominent difficulties that need to be solved."

He turned off the TV in the corner of the conference room, then turned around and walked over to a whiteboard:

"One is the flight dynamics of the net after it is thrown out in a microgravity environment. Although ideally, a net weighing a few kilograms would have a very large area, the prerequisite is to ensure that it can be deployed normally during the flight in space with almost no resistance and gravity, without penetration or knotting. Otherwise, the capture process cannot be completed. Even after a successful capture, the net also needs to be able to automatically tighten and lock the net mouth with extremely high reliability."

He drew another schematic diagram, and perhaps because he had the right tools this time, it turned out much more normal than the previous one.

"My current idea is that the ejection mechanism ejects the net through a spring, and the net is connected to the platform through a tether. A certain number of angular mass blocks are set at the edge of the net to rely on inertia to ensure that the net can open normally after being pulled out. At the same time, these angular mass blocks have a certain relative speed relative to the net body."

"After the capture is completed, the net is blocked by space debris, while the mass block continues to fly forward due to inertia to complete the closure. Finally, the closing mechanism set inside the mass block is used to ensure that the net bag is locked tightly, so that no accidents will occur during the subsequent towing process."

"Of course, the specific design details of the mass block and the mesh, including the best time to activate the locking mechanism, still need to be calculated. I will be responsible for completing this work... Fortunately, the total weight of such a complete module is only about ten kilograms. A small satellite can carry 3-4 sets. Even if one fails, there is still a chance..."

After introducing these, he quickly wiped off the words on the board and continued:

"The second is to effectively control the deorbiting of the tether complex. The flying net capture system is a tether complex composed of an interceptor, a tether, a flying net and the captured object. The effective force between the interceptor and the rest is only the tether tension. Therefore, in the implementation process, a sufficiently effective algorithm is required to complete a series of maneuvers such as target derotation, complex steering, and dragging off-orbit to ensure that the re-entry into the atmosphere is ultimately achieved without threatening other spacecraft in orbit."

Then he looked at Zhou Pingjian:

"Mr. Zhou, I know that your manned space program has a project to tether a satellite, which should be developed simultaneously with the Tiangong space station, so I'll leave this part of the work to you... But don't put too much psychological pressure on yourself. As long as the rope net can guarantee that the satellite is caught, the re-entry into the atmosphere does not require high accuracy, as long as the deviation is not too large."

Then, while Zhou Pingjian was still writing in his notebook, he slowly walked to the conference table:

"The third is the material of the rope net itself. It is best to use a reinforced composite fiber such as poly(p-phenylene benzobisoxazole)... We can make this kind of product ourselves, but the performance is not as good as imported products from Europe or Japan."

"We need to work with the external liaison department to get some countries involved and provide us with some materials... It would be best if they can provide us with a processing plan, but of course, you can also provide us with the finished product directly. Also, you don't have to be so strict about the money. Just treat it as a stepping stone for further cooperation in the future. I believe someone will be willing to take this job."

"Of course, as a backup, the domestic solution must also be implemented simultaneously, but according to my paper estimates, it may cause the weight of each flying net module to increase by about one third, so the number that can be effectively carried will be reduced to two groups, which will slightly affect the success rate..."

"..."

Following a series of instructions issued by Chang Haonan, the entire aerospace system, and even the entire Chinese industrial system, began to operate rapidly around the "space fishing boat" plan.