They're not allowed to buy rice openly, nor can they use it privately. As long as the rice processing equipment is still in use there, Xing Baohua's monitoring team stationed there will have no real value.

The most valuable things are still the equipment; we've invested a real amount, and we haven't even broken even yet. How can we return it?

Chen Shuoyue's optics team has made some progress, and they've reported it to us. We'd like Xing Baohua to come and take a look.

Putting down his work, this guy went to the optical laboratory. With the support of Nikon data, he managed to get Chen Shuoyue to work with the Shanghai Optical Research Institute to develop a lens.

A glass lens, over a meter in diameter and hand-polished, is intended for use in space.

The largest piece is over a meter in diameter, and the entire lens assembly consists of approximately 16 glass elements.

They were all made in a cleanroom laboratory, and even Xing Baohua had to wear a cleanroom suit when he went in.

When Xing Baohua arrived, he saw them assembling lenses. Solving the lens issue was only a small step forward. The focusing and distance adjustment systems that followed were also crucial.

You can't just mechanically turn the focus knob by hand.

The lens contains a micro-control focusing system that drives a motor to make fine adjustments to achieve distance adjustment before focusing.

The technology involved is very demanding and sophisticated. Although current space cameras are all film-based.

However, with the advent of the digital age, CCD sensors have become extremely important.

To cope with the space environment, there are many factors to consider, as well as continuous simulation experiments. This involves everything from theoretical research to manufacturing prototypes and then simulating the environment.

The first point is that it must withstand the impact, vibration, and overload generated during launch or recovery. When a manned spacecraft launches, the astronauts inside the spacecraft are also jolted around like they are on a roller coaster; this is due to the impact force generated by the speed and friction with the atmosphere.

Surviving the first wave is not enough; there are also environmental requirements. Looking at space from the ground, it feels beautiful, but once you pass through the atmosphere and there is no protection, you realize that the environment is extremely harsh, with various rays, electromagnetic radiation, and high-energy particles.

This has a significant impact on electronic products, and interference resistance is also a major challenge.

Therefore, when selecting electronic components, it is essential to choose hardware that can adapt to harsh environments. The first choice should be charge-coupled devices (CCDs), which have a long service life and reliable operation to handle the tasks ahead.

Xing Baohua looked at the smooth lens, and Chen Shuoyue pointed to the lens and said, "Based on the requirements of AVIC and issues such as weight, our team, after comprehensive consideration, set the lens diameter at one meter, which is 0.6 meters less than that of the first-generation American spy satellite."

Xing Baohua turned to look at Chen Shuoyue, who was explaining, and said, "The technology from the 1960s is almost thirty years behind?"

"You may have misunderstood. The point here is not the difference. I mean that the lens diameter is smaller than the first generation. If it weren't for AVIC's weight requirements, we could have made it larger. The Shanghai Institute of Optics can make it 3.8 meters."

"If it weren't for the weight, we could make it larger, but that would cause unnecessary trouble. Those multi-meter-long lenses are for reconnaissance, not ours."

Xing Baohua nodded. Although he knew a little about this, he only knew a tiny bit.

As Chen Shuoyue explained, imaging spectrometers are one thing on the ground and another in space.

This kid applied all the knowledge he learned at Nikon to this; civilian and space applications are completely different areas.

Leaving aside film cameras, current digital cameras require resolution, pixels, and other similarities in image quality.

Xing Baohua developed a commercial digital camera for Nikon, but if it were placed in space, the images transmitted back would be unreadable, and they couldn't be enlarged; they would just appear as squares on the monitor.

If you zoom out even slightly, it's all pixelated. What's the point of looking at it? The key parts are all pixelated. Who would be in a good mood?

Then we increased the pixel count so that it would still be clearly visible when zoomed in. So we considered tens of millions of pixels and finally settled on 100 million pixels.

It still has to be a large-format frame mode, not a full-frame one, there's still a difference.

The next step is to manufacture hardware chips capable of achieving 100 million pixels. The key lies in the sensor. The larger the sensor size, the better the image quality.

These are the basic hardware requirements. In addition to the sensor, other hardware also needs to be in place, such as the lens, processor, and memory.

Because 100 million pixels is a large number, the file size is also large, consuming a lot of memory. This memory isn't for storage, but for processing speed.

Zooming in, zooming out, and adjusting pixel density are all related to memory.

Therefore, this thing uses many different memory chips, and memory processing, memory addressing, and cache memory must all be used separately.

For basic consumer digital cameras, one or two memory modules are enough, or you can increase the memory capacity to handle the workload.

However, since this thing is for use in space, the memory technology can't keep up, so it can only be used by splitting and connecting the components in series.

Finally, the data is aggregated and run on the main processor.

As Xing Baohua gradually learned more, after the lenses were installed in the laboratory, he began to urge the hardware team to manufacture the necessary hardware for them.

The processor doesn't need to be very complex; Loongson is sufficient. After all, it only processes simple data and is not complicated at all. Loongson is more than enough for this task.

Xing Baohua was well aware of the capabilities of the Loongson chips he had developed. He decided to leave aside the batch commonly used in digital products and instead develop a separate batch specifically for this space camera. If all else failed, he would use the Loongson 2 chip, which, although produced in small quantities, was reliable for military use.

Therefore, it was decided to use Loongson 2 as the main processor.

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