Chapter 791 - 747 Rescue

"Still no contact with Artemis?"

Robert arrived at the Artemis team with deep concern and saw the person in charge calmly shaking his head:

"No, as per your instructions, we provided XAP with the communication channels and keys for Artemis, but they haven’t had any luck either. The tumbling Artemis simply can’t find a stable direction for communication, but that’s not all bad news."

"What’s the good news?"

"XAP’s high-orbit satellite captured a photo of Artemis. Based on our analysis, it appears that Artemis’s reflective surface has fully deployed, not partially as we had feared. This suggests that its operational mechanisms are functioning normally."

Robert frowned:

"If it’s fully deployed, then it shouldn’t have caused an overload and deviation. The attitude system should be able to handle it."

Person in charge: "So we suspect it’s actually a sensor fault, or a computer program error.

The deployment of Artemis should have been very smooth, but some of the tens of thousands of sensors scattered around malfunctioned and sent back incorrect signals, causing the attitude system to make incorrect adjustments. It misjudged a large deviation in Artemis’s position.

Then this misjudgment further led to erroneous corrections, resulting in Artemis initiating a spin on its own, and eventually, the attitude system simply crashed and shut down."

Robert brought up the photos sent by New Yuan and the emergency analysis report from NACA which, at the very least, confirmed that Artemis’s structure was mostly intact. As long as the huge reflective surface wasn’t ripped apart, they needed to get it back on track as much as possible.

"Can we find a way to reboot the system, or re-enter parameters for calibration?"

Faced with the director’s expectations, the person in charge still shook his head:

"We are still unclear about the source of the failure, and there’s another issue. Artemis is about to enter daylight soon. Its current spin rate is not very fast, but the sunlight could cause it to spin too quickly, leading to disintegration.

We’ve roughly calculated its orbit and the material’s limit of endurance. After passing through daylight three times, the changes in speed caused by the sunlight will definitely exceed the limit, and the reflective surface will be torn apart."

Artemis is currently orbiting at about 400 kilometers, with a period of roughly 90 minutes, meaning there’s just over two hours left. If they’re too late, this costly artificial sun could disintegrate without even needing a missile launch from the ground due to its increasingly rapid self-spin.

NACA has no leads at the moment, and even if they let go of their pride and asked the Aerospace Development Committee for help, it would be to no avail.

Three years ago, an Alliance Spaceship experienced a loss of control and began tumbling. It could be forcefully corrected by sending a space shuttle, but not Artemis.

Even if a space shuttle could reach it within these mere two hours and capture it, it would not be able to stop its spin.

Firstly, Artemis weighs over 150 tons; even a slow spin creates a considerable amount of momentum, which a regular space shuttle simply cannot cope with;

The second and most critical issue is that Artemis is extremely fragile. Fragile to the point where only its own ion thrusters can gently and evenly adjust its attitude. Otherwise, the large reflective surface would tear just the same.

So the problem is quite thorny, Artemis is akin to a soap bubble drifting aimlessly. It needs to be stopped without being popped.

An exasperated Robert thought hard and then asked suddenly:

"Can’t we retract it? If we can pull it back, everything that follows would be much easier."

Person in charge: "In theory, yes, but it’s still a signal issue. Even if we could try, there’s no way to contact Artemis.

Unless we find a way to launch a satellite, get it precisely next to it, then maneuver with it and transmit commands.

But I don’t suggest doing this, the space affected by Artemis’s spin is too large, and it’s very likely to block the signal from this satellite, potentially causing further damage. Moreover, we don’t have a preset command for emergency retraction, doing it now would..."

"Then we do it now, that’s our only option. This is 10 billion US Dollars! Even the Apollo program didn’t cost this much," Robert interrupted the person in charge’s explanation and immediately commanded:

"Write the command now, quickly, I can only give you 30 minutes, the rocket will be launched in 60 minutes at the latest!"

The person in charge was dumbfounded and asked subconsciously:

"60 minutes? That’s not even enough time to get the rocket to the launch pad, and we don’t have any satellites ready for immediate mission execution."

Robert: "But the Air Force does; their Emergency Net Recovery System has both rockets and satellites. I think one of them can be spared for 10 billion US Dollars. You just need to do it now; we don’t have time to waste!"

As he was frantically planning, Deputy Director Jim burst in, gasping for breath:

"The Pentagon... they are requesting NACA’s assistance, to let Artemis..."

Robert frowned and replied somewhat impatiently, interrupting him:

"We are already on it, and we’ll also need their help soon. I want to save Artemis more than anyone.

I know Artemis caused a disaster, but believe us, at worst, it will only create some temporary chaos. The Aerospace Development Committee has already come to an understanding with us."

Jim: "No, not to save it, but to let it continue creating massive radio interference, preferably affecting most of the Eastern Hemisphere!"

Robert was startled, instantly realizing a possibility, and rushed forward, grabbing Jim’s shoulders viciously, and demanded:

"What’s happened now, damn it, have they gone mad! We had just managed to reach an agreement!"

Jim swayed slightly, dizzied by the shake, tried to get his words out but shivered, his eyes glazing over as he uttered a few words:

"war... the war, it’s there."

This extremely sensitive word made Robert jolt, nearly jumping on the spot.

"No, this can’t be! These madmen, no, I can’t do this. There must be some misunderstanding, I absolutely refuse to carry out this order!"

Having realized what was happening, Robert grabbed the Artemis team lead by the neck, almost roaring in his face:

"We absolutely cannot allow Artemis to continue causing chaos. Get the command I need ready, immediately!

Jim, I need a helicopter, we have to stop this madness as soon as possible!"

As he said this, Robert dragged Jim towards the door, then seemed to remember something, took out his phone, opened an app, hesitated for a moment but still clicked into it, and while running, dizzyingly pressed the letters, trembling as he hit the send button.

After confirming the message was sent, he felt a rush within him, yet strangely relaxed somewhat, and then swiftly deleted the operation record from his phone.