A few days later.
With Levi's authorization and consent, Dark Space Company reached a strategic cooperation with the Xia National Space Agency to jointly build a giant outer space station.
Dark Space Corporation, which provides funding and technology, has absolute ownership of the space station.
The Xiaguo Space Agency has the right to apply for use first and is given a group of free places to work in the giant space station.
During the cooperation process, the Xiaguo Space Agency also obtained a lot of aerospace technology for free, and then used it to carry out its own space projects.
All in all, this is a win-win cooperation, where no one gains or loses out.
And after the cooperation agreement was reached.
July 15th.
Five of the ten "Insect-class" transport boats on the transport ship "Dreadnought Bank" were dispatched and landed at the Wenchang Space Launch Base in Qiongya Province of Xia State. A batch of materials were loaded from here and then ascended into space.
Although the "Bug-class" transport boat sounds small and tiny, in fact, the cargo hold volume of this type of transport boat is equivalent to that of a Y-20 large strategic transport aircraft. With the power of its power reactor, it can carry up to 150 tons of supplies into space.
Five transport boats working together in one batch can transport 750 tons of materials to high-orbit space.
This is equivalent to the payload capacity that can be achieved by launching the Expedition 5 large carrier rocket thirty times. If a higher orbit is to be reached, fifty or sixty launches will be needed.
Last year, in 2022, the humans of Blue Mercury sent a total of more than 800 tons of payload into space, which is only slightly more than the capacity of five fully loaded "Insect-class" transport boats.
Of the more than 500 tons of supplies carried into space by the Skyworm-class transport craft, about half were fuel and oxidizer. In addition, there were four orbital propulsion modules and a batch of living supplies weighing hundreds of tons, enough for ten human astronauts to use for more than half a year, crammed into two huge supply cabins.
In orbit more than 300 kilometers high, this batch of supplies was unloaded by the armored men and then all replenished to the "Sky No. 3" space station.
The original total weight of "Sky Three" was only a little over 300 tons, but its weight quickly increased by more than double.
Then, the five insect-class transport boats each took out a thin rope, tied it to the key stress nodes of "Sky No. 3", and started the plasma engine at the same time. Each boat outputted hundreds of tons of traction, and carefully and slowly began to pull up the orbit of Sky No. 3.
It has been raised from the original average low-Earth elliptical orbit of more than 300 kilometers to a high circular orbit of more than 20,000 kilometers.
By the way, why is Sky-3 built so high?
The reason is that the "Vegetable Garden Project" and the "Power Plant Project" which were launched a few days ago need a group of "manpower" to help and participate. They can either become "workers" and do the work themselves, or supervise or watch over them to prevent them from being sabotaged by other forces.
The problem is that in the vacuum environment of space, it is impossible to recruit anyone to help, so we can only turn our attention to the astronauts in "Sky Three" and let these astronauts temporarily put down their current work and work here.
Once the "Vegetable Garden Project" and "Power Plant Project" are completed, the insect-class transport boat will tow "Sky Three" back to low-Earth orbit to continue its original mission.
…
Zheng Xiaofeng, male, 48 years old, is an astronaut on Sky-3.
As an astronaut, or an old astronaut, he is very proud of the job he does, and even regards it as the glory and belief he pursues throughout his life.
To wait for this day, to enter the sea of stars that I have always dreamed of.
From the day he was selected into the National Astronaut Corps at the age of 28, he persisted for a full 20 years... His entire youth was spent in boring training and waiting.
He always ranked among the top in every subject and his theoretical knowledge was enough to teach young astronauts who were more than 20 years younger than him.
Most of his teammates who joined the astronaut corps at the same time as him have experience in performing space missions, and some of their experiences have even been written into textbooks, and they are full of honors.
Only he wasted all the way until he was 48 years old. It was not until the Sky-3 space station was completed and put into use that he had the opportunity to board the "Xianzhou" series manned spacecraft and became the oldest astronaut from Xia Country to enter space for the first time.
He was so excited that he could not express it in words. During the video call between heaven and earth, when his daughter asked him why he had persisted for so many years without giving up, his answer made many people cry, and countless netizens were moved by his spirit.
Of course, although in the past twenty years, due to cost considerations, Xiaguo has carried out extremely limited manned space missions, averaging less than one every two years, and has sent only 18 astronauts into space in total... an average of less than one per year.
Among the multiple batches of astronauts who participated in astronaut training, one-third entered space after layers of selection and elimination.
But it cannot be said that his superiors did not give Zheng Xiaofeng a chance. His outstanding performance was seen by everyone. There was no reason to hinder his dream and go against his conscience.
But God was always unfair to him. He had three opportunities in front of him, but he caught the flu twice and had a car accident once... He missed all of them. Many old comrades thought that he was not destined to succeed and was too unlucky, so he should choose to retire and make contributions in other positions.
But he doesn't!
He just wants to persist and he will never give up.
Fortunately, his persistence was not in vain. After 2020, the country suddenly increased its investment in the aerospace field, and the space station plan was accelerated. The "Sky-3", which was originally planned to be put into service in 2025, was completed and put into use two years ahead of schedule.
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