Chapter 930 - Asteroid Hunting (1/2)

“Engine No.8 ignite.”

“Ignition is completed. The asteroid successfully entered C2 orbit. The fourth orbit change will occur in ten minutes. All units prepare.”

The tense atmosphere in the Space Launch Center instantly disappeared. All the tightly-clenched fists slowly eased up, including Kelvin’s, and there were whispered cheers. Each orbital change was a great challenge for a command center with zero experience.

But soon, everyone’s fists clenched again.

Ten minutes later, the next orbit change would occur. Before the final orbit change, they couldn’t let their guard down.

“Roger… The parameters have been entered and confirmed.”

“Engine No. 3 decelerate.”

“The engine output of Engine No. 6 is increasing by 10%.”

To describe the difficulty of the project, the best metaphor was using steel wires to operate a scalpel and operating on a patient several kilometers away. Aside from a few orbits where the asteroid could remain for long periods of time without the need to control it, for the rest of the time, Kelvin could hardly close his eyes.

Unless he couldn’t keep his eyes open at all, he would let his assistant take control for a few moments.

At last…

“The Bennu asteroid successfully entered the D1 orbit from the C2 orbit.”

“All rocket engine groups successfully stalled.”

“The next orbit change will occur in ten hours, at two o’clock. I hope to see all of you in your positions. Now, other than the monitoring team, the rest can disband.”

Without cheering, all the staff were relieved. They organized the items on the table and headed to the door. Now, they only wanted to go to the cafeteria to have a meal, take a shower and sleep for a while. They were still eight hours away from two o’clock. This time, they could sleep for a little longer. They didn’t know how many days it may be before they could sleep for this long again.

Kelvin rubbed his eyebrows and sat down in his chair.

In order to maintain his concentration, he was standing and commanding for the entire duration. Now that the asteroid successfully changed orbit, he was no longer in a state of hypertension.

His assistant brought him a cup of coffee.

“Coffee?”

“No, it’ll make me unable to sleep.”

Declining the coffee brought by the assistant, Kelvin continued to sit for a while then got up.

Having entered the D1 orbit, after five more orbital changes, the asteroid would be integrated into the Earth-Moon system. This work was simply tormenting. The fatigue he accumulated over the past week was almost equivalent to all the fatigue he accumulated with the space elevator project over the previous year.

It was okay to just do this kind of thing once. Next time, he would leave this to his assistant. With the experience, he already drafted a blueprint in his mind about establishing an asteroid mining project department as well as a division in this department. He planned to divide the entire project into systematic steps.

When he reached the entrance to the cafeteria, he bumped into Ivan.

Kelvin looked at the Ukrainian with surprise and stepped forward to say hello.

“Ivan? What brought you here?”

“I’m here waiting for you.” Ivan grinned and gestured the assistant next to him to give a document to Kelvin. “Celestial Trade intends to set up a Space defense force, and our military needs assistance from Space Launch Center. This project was approved by Mr. President himself. You better go over it.”

“You should’ve just sent it to my assistant. There’s no need to make a personal trip here.” Kelvin shook his head with a smile and took the document. But when he saw the mark on the cover, his drowsy brain immediately sobered up. “Highly confidential?”

“This is also the reason why I made a trip here,” Ivan solemnly said, “The contents of the document relates to the highest confidentiality level of Celestial Trade, the contents of which can only be viewed by you alone.”

“I understand.” Kelvin nodded gravely.

After explaining the matter, Ivan left.

Kelvin looked at the document in his hand, looked at the cafeteria, and finally sighed. He shook his head and headed to his office.

“Forget it… I’ll get the assistant to bring me a sandwich. There goes my lunch.”

While muttering, Kelvin pulled out his mobile phone.

He knew how crucial documents with the highest level of confidentiality were as an executive at Celestial Trade. What he needed to do now was to briefly scan the document then stuff it into a safe that could only be opened with his fingerprints and iris scan…

At Coro Airport, a civilian airliner landed on the runway.

A tall Russian beauty walked through the airport with her suitcase and stopped at the airport gate, attracting countless visitors heading to the departure hall. It wasn’t that no one worked up the courage to say hi; it was that she didn’t even have any interest to respond to strangers after their attempts.