Chapter 489: For Father (1/2)
“My Lord, please come to the control room as soon as possible.”
While Jin was relaxing at Stearleana’s house, Laojun’s voice suddenly echoed in his ears.
Jin quickly thanked Stearleana for the tea and hurried to the control room in the basement of the laboratory. Reiko followed him without saying a word.
“What is it? Did something happen?”
“We’re in an unpredictable situation.”
“What!?”
“Satellite 001 is falling.”
After the Gravity Magic affecting it was canceled, the satellite was supposed to restore its inertia and put itself into a geosynchronous orbit, but after several tens of minutes, it became difficult to maintain said orbit, and it had started to fall.
“Where did we fail?”
“Falling has a certain velocity. After a mere 15 minutes, according to Satellite 001’s data, it’s no longer stationary.”
“What?”
“This planet’s rotation speed was higher than anticipated. Satellite 001 seems to have been left behind.”
“Hmm…”
Jin began to think. Geosynchronous satellites are those that are relatively stationary with respect to the planet’s surface. Preliminary experiments confirmed that when inertia is restored, the satellite’s original velocity would also be restored.
If the time from launch to orbit is 2 hours, the direction of speed would shift by about 30 degrees, but something like that should have been corrected by the satellite’s Magi Gravity Engine.
However…
“Ah, I see!”
Jin realized where his misunderstanding had been. It could never behave like a satellite at the speed it had when it was on the planet’s surface.
The satellite orbit couldn’t be maintained unless its speed was about 8 kilometers per second.
Jin quickly instructed Laojun.
“Laojun, accelerate it using its Magi Gravity Engine. It should be able to reach a speed of 8 kilometers per second if we accelerate it at 1G for about 15 minutes.”
“I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”
“Why?”
“Satellite 001 is rotating as it falls.”
“What?”
It seemed to have started to rotate at a speed that was beyond the satellite’s attitude control.
“Ah… I should have put a gyroscope in it…”
Jin was not familiar with the mechanism of artificial satellites, so it was understandable that his first attempt would fail.
“How frustrating…”
Jin’s face had made a complete change from his previous expression, and was now groaning with regret.
“Laojun, can’t we use the Falcon or something like that to catch the satellite?”
Jin wasn’t the one who asked that question. But he was the one to answer it.
“That won’t work, Reiko. There’s no air in outer space. The Falcon’s Magi Jet Engine won’t work there.”
“I see…”
Reiko was disheartened after seeing Jin’s own discouraged expression.
The one to come to their aid was Laojun.
“My Lord, I believe there is one thing worth trying.”
“What is it?”
Since they had little time to act, Laojun was brief in his explanation.
“We could transfer an aircraft that can break into the atmosphere and retrieve Satellite 001 with it.”
“But can we match the satellite’s falling speed? Will we be able to catch it as it falls?”
“At this point, we can only take our chances.”
Jin was worried. A golem-operated aircraft shouldn’t have much of a problem being transferred into outer space. However, Jin could not predict what would happen the moment it entered the atmosphere.
It would be nice if Satellite 001 could be retrieved safely, but if all were to go terribly wrong, the aircraft could be lost. And its golem pilot with it.
“Father, I’ll go on Pegasus 1.”
“What?”
“It feels weird that I say this myself, but I have the fastest reaction speed of all the golems and automata that you have access to. I think that we should take our best chances if we want this operation to succeed.”
“But…”
“My Lord, we can’t afford to hesitate. Each second that passes, Satellite 001 gets 9.8 meters per second faster than the last.”
“Understood.”
Jin made up his mind.
“Reiko, there’s no need for you to do that. I have no intention to put you through that kind of danger.”