September 19, 2030.

After a long voyage, the Jupiter Expeditionary Force finally arrived at the orbit of Jupiter, and three Gonggong-class spacecraft were parked in the orbit of Jupiter.

Zhang Shuyi, the captain of the Expeditionary Force, stood in the observation cabin of the rotating wheel cabin, looking at Jupiter in the distance, and Jupiter's natural satellites that entered their sight from time to time.

Along the way, the Expeditionary Force did not have a smooth sailing.

For example, if people get sick or equipment malfunction, these things sometimes happen suddenly and there is no sign at all.

Fortunately, when the three Gonggong-class ships were designed and built, they fully considered various possible accidents, so that these emergencies could be dealt with without any danger.

"It's finally here."

An Ning, the deputy next to him, took a tablet computer and called out a document: "Captain, the Ministry of Aerospace has handed over all the equipment in Jupiter's orbit to us."

Zhang Shuyi took the tablet and listed the equipment that was still operating in Jupiter's orbit.

These include 57 detectors, 16 professional detection satellites, and 5 landers.

There are also two resource reserve space stations and two forward-class spacecraft, which were sent to Jupiter's orbit one after another by the Ministry of Aerospace.

Of course, these equipment and materials are only used to deal with early work needs.

As time goes by, the Jupiter Expeditionary Force composed of three Gonggong-class spacecraft will gradually form its own industrial system and achieve self-sufficiency development.

"Aning." Zhang Shuyi turned his head and ordered: "Let the No. 2 ship be prepared, draw some manpower, use the two forward-class spacecraft to start mining some resources."

"I understand." An Ning nodded.

Soon some of the expeditionary forces took action, and some of them received the two resource reserve space stations, integrated them, and prepared to build a Jupiter satellite city.

On the other hand, the personnel controlled two forward-class spacecraft to go to Jupiter's natural satellites to exploit the resources needed.

Although Jupiter's own super magnetic field and gravitational field make it difficult for spacecraft to enter, natural satellites, asteroids and ice crystal matter in Jupiter's orbit are very rich.

The 79 natural satellites alone contain more resources than those on the Blue Star surface.

This does not mean that the total resources of Blue Star are less than those of these Jupiter satellites, but involves a problem of difficulty in mining.

For example, gold, Blue Star's total gold reserves are 20,000 Gigatons. The problem is that most of these golds are stored in the core and mantle. In that part of the earth's crust, humans cannot fully mine it.

According to the current federal mining technology, solid minerals at a depth of 1,500 to 2,500 meters on land can be mined, and oceanic submarine minerals can only mine submarine deposits at a depth of 200 to 1,500 meters.

In this way, the ratio of mineable minerals between Blue Star and Jupiter moons can only be limited to a part of the surface of both sides.

It is equivalent to comparing the area of ​​both sides, the area of ​​Blue Star, and the surface area of ​​Jupiter's 79 natural satellites. Compared with the two, the surface area of ​​Jupiter's moon is obviously greater than the surface area of ​​Blue Star.

In terms of the total amount of exploitable resources at this stage, Blue Star has no way to compare with Jupiter satellites.

In addition, there are also heavy metal-rich asteroids in the asteroid belt. According to the latest detection data, there are 86 large asteroids rich in heavy metals in the asteroid belt.

One of the asteroids contains 2.4 to 2.9 million tons of gold, as well as a large amount of platinum group metals, tungsten, lead, etc.

In other words, in terms of resources, Jupiter doesn't need to worry too much.

As for the Blue Star, in fact, in addition to its own resources, solar wind, Mercury and Venus resources, they can also be calculated on the Blue Star.

After all, transportation between the inner layers of the solar system is relatively convenient. If Blue Star really needs some rare resources, the Sun, Mercury, Venus and Mars in the inner layer of the solar system can all be used as resources to replenish the planet.

Especially Venus, this is a planet with extremely abundant minerals. Due to its annual volcanic eruptions, the surface often exchanges substances with the mantle, resulting in the total amount of heavy metal minerals present on the surface being dozens of times more than that of Blue Star.

For example, rhenium, tungsten, iridium, rhodium, rubidium, etc. commonly used in the aerospace industry are everywhere on the surface of Venus.

The current industrial production in the Venus Zone is to extract some rare elements and then transport them back to the Blue Star, which is also one of the strategic significance of the Venus Zone.

The Jupiter zone, which the Expeditionary Force is responsible for, does not need to transmit resources to the Blue Star, and the resources here can completely make the Expeditionary Force self-sufficient.

The Jupiter Zone has great potential in the future, and can accommodate at least a hundred billion people. After all, the total amount of resources here is more than one order of magnitude than Blue Star.

Resources and technology jointly determine the height of civilization development.

Moreover, Jupiter can appropriately develop some giant structures. As long as the radius of the giant structure is not more than about 100 kilometers, the probability of being observed by alien civilizations in Jupiter's orbit is relatively small.

This is also the core strategy for Jupiter's development in the future. After all, only large giant cities can generate enough gravitational force to ensure that a large number of people live on Jupiter.

Before the two forwards came from Blue Star, they designed some mining and rough smelting equipment in advance.

Iobi, an irregular rocky planet, is a relatively small type of Jupiter's natural satellite, with a surface area of ​​only 90,800 square kilometers, a little smaller than Zhejiang omitted.

This natural satellite is one of the mineral collection planets planned by the Ministry of Aerospace for the Expeditionary Force.

In fact, among Jupiter's series of natural satellites, except for the four Galilean satellites, other Jupiter's natural satellites are all large stones, with a radius of about a few kilometers to twenty kilometers.

The four Galilean satellites are Io, with a diameter of 3,637 kilometers and a surface area of ​​41.91 million square kilometers;

Europa, with a diameter of 3138 kilometers and a surface area of ​​31 million square kilometers;

Io Mae, with a diameter of 5,262 kilometers and a surface area of ​​87 million square kilometers;

Io, with a diameter of 4,800 kilometers and a surface area of ​​74 million square kilometers, slightly smaller than Mercury (diameter of 4,880 kilometers).

These four Galilean satellites are all in the inner circle of Jupiter's orbit and are also the focus of future exploration and research of the Expeditionary Force.

Most of the remaining natural satellites are large rock planets that can be used as resource mining planets.

The forward-class spacecraft is now mining. It is such a planet, and it is an irregular planet.

With current technology and the low gravity environment of this small natural satellite, the Expeditionary Force can quickly hollow out the planet.

If it is confirmed that there is no danger here (such as lethal microorganisms), the Expeditionary Force will gradually transform Ouva into a raw material smelting base.

After all, building a rotating satellite city requires a lot of resources, and these natural satellites are the most convenient resource supply locations.

However, at present, the resources mined by the forward-level level are mainly used to produce new spacecraft, and then part of them are used on the space capsule of the space station.

In addition to these tasks, the Expeditionary Force has another mission, which is to study the physical condition of astronauts in long-term life under centrifugal gravity environments.

This is why, the Federation is clearly already building the next batch of Gonggong-class spacecraft, but has not accelerated its construction and continues to select Expeditionary Force astronauts.
Chapter completed!