Great Power Heavy Industry: Rise

Chapter 358 Landing on Ceres

2034 2 Month 18 Day.

On the 60th day since Zhaixing left the earth, it has been 2.6 million kilometers away from the earth and entered the asteroid belt.

The asteroid belt is a dense area of ​​asteroids between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter in the solar system. There are more than 12 asteroids that have been numbered.

Since the asteroid belt is the most densely populated area of ​​asteroids, this area is also known as the main belt.

In the space area of ​​the asteroid belt about 3.24 million to 5.45 million kilometers away from the sun, there are more than 50 asteroids gathered.

So many asteroids can be condensed in the asteroid belt, in addition to the gravitational effect of the sun, the gravitational force of Jupiter also plays a role.

The asteroid belt formed from a population of planetesimals (precursors of planets smaller than planets) in the primordial solar nebula.

However, Jupiter's gravitational influence prevented these planetesimals from forming planets, causing many planetesimals to collide with each other and form many debris and debris.

In addition to Ceres, the three largest asteroids in the asteroid belt are Pallas, Juno and Vesta, with an average diameter of more than 400 kilometers. The rest of the asteroids are smaller, some even the size of dust.

Zhong Cheng, Yang Xi, Lin Wei and others were disappointed to find that in the asteroid belt like a ring in the solar system star map, under their naked eye observation, there was still a boundless empty starry sky.

Only on the radar navigation map of Zhaixing, can it be observed that there are dozens of large and small asteroids distributed within a range of 30 kilometers centered on Zhaixing.

The largest diameter is more than 600 meters, and the smallest is less than 3 meters. At this scale, they are definitely invisible to the naked eye unless they hit head-on.

However, the navigation equipment on the Star Reacher and the navigators such as Hu Bo have already planned the route, and it is impossible for them to encounter such a situation.

Today is the traditional Chinese New Year's Eve, and tomorrow is the Spring Festival. This is the first time for Zhong Cheng and others to celebrate the Spring Festival outside the earth.

But a call with the family was delayed by nearly 15 minutes, and they only sent a few words of blessing and a few videos in the asteroid belt to end.

On the Star Reaching, Hu Bo and Li Qiwei organized a special Starry Sky Spring Festival Gala.

All the members gathered in the restaurant except for a few staff on duty, singing and dancing, welcoming the New Year with laughter.

After the Lantern Festival on March 3, the leisurely work rhythm on the Zhaixing ship came to an end.

It has been 75 days since the departure, and there are still 8 days to arrive at the terminal Ceres, and everyone is busy.

Hu Bo and other crew members began to communicate closely with the navigation station on the Ceres base, corrected the speed and trajectory of the Star Reacher, and prepared to land on Ceres.

Lin Wei and others began to inspect the artificial gravity equipment and the optical brain system, and simulate the implementation process after landing on Ceres, because they were not given much time, only one week, and all the installation and debugging work had to be completed.

The asteroid capture team led by Yang Xi will also participate in the installation process of the artificial gravity system, but it will only do auxiliary work.When it comes time to capture the asteroid, the priorities of the two teams will be reversed.

Because for this deep space voyage, every additional person carried means that about 2 tons of supplies will be carried. It is impossible for each person to be responsible for only one job.

3 month 13 day.

Outside the porthole of the Star Reaching Command Center, a gray and plain spherical celestial body has filled the sky.

The dense craters on Ceres are already visible to the naked eye, clearly showing that, like the moon, it is also a rocky planet without the protection of an atmosphere.

However, Ceres is only one-sixth the size of the moon.

The Star Reacher has reached a 20-kilometer orbit above the equator of Ceres, ready to implement a soft landing.

The target is the Occator crater, located near 25 degrees north latitude on Ceres.

This crater is about 90 kilometers in diameter and about 4 kilometers deep. You can see a large number of bright spots scattered in it on the Star Reacher.

Hu Bo explained that these bright spots are the reflection of light from ice-salt lakes. There are a lot of water resources on Ceres, and the water content of the entire planet is as high as 25%, which even exceeds the water content of the earth.

There is a huge subterranean ocean deep underground on Ceres. These seawater may be affected by the high temperature and cracks generated by the impact, and erupted to form the mysterious bright spots they see today.

Okato Crater is not the largest crater on Ceres, but it has the largest surface ice lake, so the space agency built the first base there.

While speaking, under the continuous deceleration of the recoil engine, the Star Reacher crossed the high mountain walls around the Okato crater and flew into the interior of the crater.

Next to the central ice lake, there is a human base covered by a small transparent dome.

Small is only compared to the dome city on the moon. Hu Bo said that the dome called Penglai Base also has a diameter of 2 kilometers.

However, due to insufficient building materials, only a half-built skyscraper was used as a supporting column.

There is a temporary airport on the south side of the dome. Although the rocks protruding from the ground are only slightly leveled, it does not prevent the asterisk from landing, because there is almost no gravity on Ceres.

When the speed of the Star Reacher relative to Ceres dropped to zero, the huge fuselage fell "lightly" to the airport.

After the left side of the Star Reacher was fully connected with the huge passage extending from the dome, Hu Bo led Zhong Cheng and others to float out of the cabin first.

With the help of Ceres' gravity, which is only 36/[-] of the earth's, Zhong Cheng slowly landed on the ground of Ceres, but he didn't feel like landing at all.

Yang Xi just stepped on the ground lightly, and was bounced three meters high.

Fortunately, everyone has been practicing in the weightless cabin on the Star Reacher for a while, otherwise they will make a fool of themselves soon.

Zhong Cheng lightly touched the ground with his toes, and with a slight swing of his hands, his body floated forward, his movements were chic and elegant, like a fairy.

"Old sailors" like Hu Bo habitually advance like breaststroke in the water, which is not bad.

The newcomers Yang Xi, Lin Wei and others struggled to catch up with dog crawling strokes, which seemed a bit embarrassing.

Yang Xi yelled, "I made a mistake. I should have spent more time practicing if I had known the contrast effect."

Lin Wei smiled wryly and said, "Zhong Cheng's control over his body and the airflow around his body is not comparable to ours, but at least we have to strive to be the same as Hu Bo and the others."

They passed through the airtight door of the passage and the germ disinfection room, and floated into a hall behind.

There were already six people waiting in the lobby.

These six people are all in their 40s and [-]s. Their bodies are tall and strong, but they are in extremely bad condition. Their faces are pale and listless, but the forced smiles on their faces still reveal their inner joy.

Hu Bo hurriedly stepped forward to introduce to everyone, the leader of this group is the director of Penglai Base, the future chief executive of Penglai City and Ceres Administrative District, named Xu Yongfu.

A soldier beside Xu Yongfu is Meng Ye, with the rank of Warlord, and the highest commander of the Federal Army stationed at Penglai Base.

After the establishment of the Asian Federation, the Asian Federation Army was reorganized on the basis of the Chinese Defense Forces, and the military ranks were changed accordingly.

The military rank below the school level remains unchanged, and above the school officer is divided into three levels: Overseer, Senior Overseer, and Governor-General.

Due to the small size of the federal army now, the senior warlord is already the highest rank, and Zhong Cheng's rank in the China National Defense Forces before his retirement was already equivalent to the governor's army.

So Meng Ye gave a military salute to Zhong Cheng as soon as they met, and shouted: "Hello, Chief!"

(End of this chapter)