Arizona Astronomical Observatory, North America.
As a large-scale astronomical observatory built after 2020, this scientific research facility had the most sensitive radio telescope array in North America. Its accuracy could even track meteorite fragments and space garbage with a diameter of only half a meter, as long as they were within the Earth-Moon system.
As the newest and most advanced astronomical observatory in North America, the Arizona Astronomical Observatory was nominally a civilian public scientific research facility belonging to the American Astronomical Society. However, in fact, its funding came from the Pentagon's defense budget and was directly under the jurisdiction of the Space Command.
Since it had received funding from the military, the mission of this astronomical observatory was naturally not as simple as it was claimed to be when it was first established.
According to an internal Pentagon document, only 30% of this astronomical observatory's observation mission was to find habitable planets outside the solar system.
As for the remaining 70% of the observation missions, most of them were concentrated in the Earth-Moon transfer orbit and the lunar orbit. Needless to say, their purpose was to monitor China's space activities within the Earth-Moon system for the Pentagon.
Professor Reston stood next to the coffee machine and quietly waited for the coffee to be ready. He rubbed his sore eyebrows and tried to relax his overheated nervous brain.
About a week ago, China launched the first batch of components for the manned Mars landing program according to the schedule that was disclosed to the international community.
Since that day, he and the observation team he led had not taken a day off. They were on standby for almost 24 hours a day, not even daring to relax for an hour.
After all, no one could guarantee that China would arrange every launch plan according to the launch schedule that they had disclosed to the international community.
This kind of thing was not unprecedented.
Even they themselves had done it countless times.
As the person in charge of this astronomical observatory and a researcher employed by the Pentagon, he received only one task, which was to observe and track every detail of China's Mars landing plan and collect as much information as possible from their launch activities.
This task was personally given to him by the US Secretary of Defense at a work meeting.
Precisely because of this, from the moment he received the task, he felt the unparalleled pressure on his shoulders.
But fortunately, this period of time was almost over by him.
The recent launch mission was the third launch in China's Mars landing plan. According to the launch plan they announced, there was only one more launch left.
Once the last round was over, their work would come to an end.
"Starlight has successfully entered the synchronous orbit."
"The third batch of components has been released from the cargo hold …"
"Recovery successful. The Magpie Bridge is accelerating to change orbit."
"Orbit switch successful. The Magpie Bridge has successfully entered the Earth-Moon transfer orbit!"
Reports came one after another.
Professor Reston, who was standing in the control room, listened expressionlessly.
Although none of it could be considered good news to them, for some reason, he actually felt a faint sense of relief in his heart.
Everything was finally coming to an end …
Just as he was thinking about this, his assistant walked in from outside the control room.
"Professor Reston."
Professor Reston turned around and looked at his assistant.
"What is it?"
"Professor Phil Goethe has submitted a visit request to NASA. He will visit our astronomical observatory the day after tomorrow."
Professor Reston frowned when he heard this unfamiliar name.
"Professor Phil Goethe?"
Reading the confusion in his boss's eyes, the assistant immediately introduced him.
"He is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology University. He is also a specially hired engineer for NASA and the person in charge of the Lunar Gateway project. Not long ago, he announced in a high-profile interview with the media that the Mars landing plan launched on the other side of the Pacific Ocean was doomed to fail. They did not make any adequate preparations for landing on Mars at all … "
His assistant paused for a moment. He shrugged helplessly.
"Maybe seeing that the China's plan has been going so smoothly so far, he may be a little impatient."
So what if he can't sit still?
Hearing these words, Professor Reston couldn't help but feel a little amused.
Although this smile was mostly filled with helplessness.
The corners of his mouth twitched expressionlessly. He spoke in a lukewarm tone.
"If he's interested, let him come."
"Although I don't think it makes any sense."
After speaking, he put the empty coffee cup in his hand on the table next to the console. He then walked around his assistant and walked out of the control room …
…
On the third day after the Magpie Bridge successfully took over the third batch of components of the Mars landing plan, Professor Phil Goethe arrived at the astronomical observatory in Arizona as scheduled.
As soon as the old professor, who was already in his sixties, stepped into the astronomical observatory and saw Professor Reston walking toward him, he didn't even have time to say hello.
"How's the situation?"
"How far has their launch plan progressed?"
"Is there anything unusual?"
"In my opinion, the entire Mars landing plan is full of unusual things from beginning to end. Which one are you referring to?" Faced with this barrage of questions, Professor Reston shrugged his shoulders. "As for how far their plan has progressed, I think it should be in the final stage of preparation."
Professor Phil Goethe looked at the slightly young researcher in front of him with a stiff expression. He spoke with difficulty.
"… Final stage?"
"Yes." Professor Reston nodded and said, "About half an hour ago, those China people had successfully transported the last batch of components to the Moon Palace, just as they announced in the Mars landing plan timetable. Originally, we all thought that they might temporarily adjust the launch time to avoid our detection activities. But now it seems that they don't seem to care about our spying on them at all. Not only did they not make any changes to the launch plan, but they even … "
Professor Phil Goethe: "Even?"
A bitter and helpless smile appeared on Professor Reston's face.
"… It's like they deliberately put it there for us to see."
Professor Phil Goethe fell silent. He didn't know what to say.
Just more than half a month ago, he was still optimistic that China's announcement of the Mars landing plan at this time was likely to provoke NASA and provoke a new round of space race in order to achieve some kind of hidden political goal. And if they really launched the Mars landing plan according to such a "hasty" timetable, this immature plan was destined to fail miserably.
But now, it seemed that all of this was purely his own imagination.
Forget about failure, they didn't even have the intention to hide it. It was as if they didn't take their nominal opponents seriously at all.
Professor Reston looked at the silent old professor. He was silent for a while before he suddenly spoke.
"Let's not stand at the door and talk. Since we're here, let's come in and take a look.
"If I'm not mistaken, they are probably trying to put those parts together into an entire colonial ship, and then launch it to Mars with the astronauts."
He said the second half of the sentence in a joking tone. Although it wasn't a comfort, the solemn atmosphere around him relaxed a little because of his joke.
He didn't need to explain how difficult it was to assemble a spacecraft weighing hundreds of tons in lunar orbit. This was something that anyone with a slight understanding of aerospace knew.
Assembling three pieces of parts on the Moon Palace into a spacecraft sounded like shooting an AK47 at a target hundreds of meters away, with all the bullets going into the same bullseye.
There was no independent power system, and its orbit was constantly adjusted according to the CCD camera and dynamic visual measurement system on the spacecraft. If they were not careful, these parts would collide into each other and turn into deadly space junk.
In contrast, he was more inclined to think that the Mars landing spacecraft designed by China was actually a spacecraft slightly smaller than Starlight. It had already been sent to the Moon Palace for fuel replenishment during the first launch plan.
The subsequent two launch missions were to send some simple ground life-support devices to the Moon Palace space station, which were ready to be carried by other spacecraft and launched in batches to Mars orbit for deployment.
However, on the radar screen in the command room, the three white dots floating around the Moon Palace were gradually approaching each other under the pull of some kind of force.
Professor Reston, who had just walked into the control room with Professor Phil Goethe, noticed the unusual situation on the radar screen, and frowned.
At first, he thought that there was a problem with the radio telescope array.
But he soon realized that this was impossible. This morning, the engineer in charge of equipment maintenance carried out maintenance on the radio telescope array of the astronomical observatory.
Professor Phil Goethe, who was standing next to him, also noticed the anomaly on the radar. He muttered to himself.
He muttered to himself in a low voice, "What the hell are they doing?"
"I don't know …" Gradually realizing the seriousness of the problem, Professor Reston immediately looked at his assistant and asked, "Can we apply for permission to use the Universe-2 optical observation satellite?"
The Universe-2 optical observation satellite was a cosmic observation satellite commissioned by NASA by the Space-X Group to be launched after 2022. It mainly photographed the planets in the solar system through a high-resolution lens.
Of course, so far, this satellite, like the Arizona Astronomical Observatory, had focused 70% of its observation missions on the Moon.
Or more accurately, 70% of the missions were concentrated on the China astronauts who were active on the Moon.
"It should be fine … I'll go ask."
After saying this, the assistant quickly ran out of the control room.
He didn't let his boss wait for a long time. He quickly ran back.
"NASA has approved our application!"
Professor Reston immediately ordered without hesitation, "Connect to the Universe-2 optical observation satellite! Focus on the Moon Palace! "
Hundreds of kilometers away, a cylindrical satellite fine-tuned its orbit and pointing angle, locking its lens on the Moon Palace.
When the lens was aimed at the Moon Palace, everyone in the control room was stunned by the scene in front of them.
Are they really assembling a spaceship?!
WTF？！
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