On July 5, local time, NASA stated that the U.S. Capstone CubeSat "lost contact" while leaving the earth's orbit and heading towards the moon.

Never expected that America's satellite would lose contact .

On July 5, local time, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) stated that the U.S. Capstone CubeSat "lost contact" while leaving the earth's orbit and heading towards the moon.

Note that this mission is not cheap. The total cost of is as high as 30 million US dollars , of which the spacecraft development and operation cost 20 million US dollars, and the electron launcher cost 1,000 US dollars. NASA will not give it up easily.

But so far, NASA engineers are still trying to restore contact with in , but unfortunately they have not received good news.

The reason why this incident attracts attention is that this satellite is part of the American "Artemis Program". The mission goal is to test an unusual lunar orbit for . It is considered an important "explorer" of the plan. Pathfinder".

Speaking of which, we must first introduce the "Artemis Project".

In ancient Greek mythology, Artemis is Apollo ’s twin sister , which is also the origin of the name of the project. Like the "Apollo Project" implemented between 1961 and 1972, the "Artemis Project" is also aimed at achieving manned landing on the moon, but the ultimate goal is to establish a permanent base on the moon.

To talk about the difference between the two plans, the most critical point is: the new plan of is "time-critical"!

Because in 2017, then US President Trump signed the "Sky Policy Directive No. 1", requiring NASA to formulate a new lunar exploration plan. It was not until 2019 that the new plan was named, and the manned moon landing time point was set in 2024 .

In other words, NASA has the last two and a half years left to realize the United States’ dream of “returning to the moon.”

But now, a satellite in the original plan suddenly lost contact, which will inevitably affect NASA's data modeling , thereby delaying the implementation of the moon landing plan . It has to be said that has less and less time left for NASA.

Of course, the plan cannot be implemented on time. can completely postpone . Anyway, this is not the first time that the United States has done this.

According to the mission schedule, Artemis 1 , which will perform unmanned on-orbit flight experiments, was supposed to be launched at the end of 2021. However, NASA first postponed it to February 2022, and then postponed it to April 30. The latest news is that it plans to launch from the end of August to early September.

Because of this, the Artemis 3 mission that actually carried out the manned moon landing mission has also been postponed many times. NASA Director Nielsen has stated that it is not technically feasible to carry out a manned moon landing in 2024.

How many years will it be postponed? Pay attention to NASA's latest statement that the manned moon landing time is no earlier than 2025 , and the exact time point is not even marked. Obviously, this is "leaving a way out" for in the future. Maybe it will be postponed?

In fact, this is also a reflection of the current situation of , the US technological hegemony and .

To use an analogy, according to the US Politico News Network's report on the 5th, the US Department of Defense is formulating a "hot air balloon" plan . In the program, these high-altitude inflatable vehicles will be flown to between 60,000 and 90,000 feet and incorporated into the Pentagon's surveillance network to track hypersonic weapons.

This plan has been implemented for at least two years and has cost approximately 13.8 million US dollars. However, in fiscal year 2023, the Pentagon plans to invest US$127.1 million in for this purpose, and may increase the budget.

In this regard, the American media commented that "looks like science fiction" , but fundamentally, this is precisely because the United States cannot master hypersonic missile technology , so it has no choice but to choose such an approach.

It should be pointed out that the Pentagon has conducted many flight tests of hypersonic missile systems, but almost all of them ended in failure.. For example, in the experiments in October last year and June this year, either the booster failed or the ignition failed, causing the development process of the missile to be quite unsatisfactory.

In contrast, Russia is one of the only leaders in this field. In the Russian-Ukrainian conflict that broke out this year, the Russian army launched a "Dagger" hypersonic missile at Ukraine. This is also This weapon uses in combat for the first time.

This application has put greater pressure on the US military to at least make achievements in the field of defense hypersonic missiles. Therefore, the Pentagon's investment in this alternative "hot air balloon" program has increased sevenfold compared with the past two years combined.

In the final analysis, behind the U.S. Department of Defense's "alternative approach" is actually the fact that U.S. hegemony is being challenged . As we all know, the "three pillars" of U.S. hegemony are dollar hegemony, technological hegemony and military hegemony, and the three complement each other.

However, the world is experiencing "great changes unseen in a century." The epidemic of the century has been compounded by the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and cracks in American hegemony have begun to appear.

Taking Russia as an example, the "Ruble Settlement Order" not only successfully responded to Western financial sanctions, but also promoted the ruble internationalization , which undoubtedly weakened the hegemony of the US dollar.

And hypersonic weapons and "King of Nuclear Bombs" Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile are areas where the Russian military competes with the US military hegemony.

Even though the United States’ comprehensive scientific and technological capabilities are unique in the world, Russia is also actively responding.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Chernyshenko said that Russia will open 30 advanced engineering colleges to ensure that key fields must be completed by Russians. In this regard, Russian President Putin also made important instructions, must remain concerned about national technological sovereignty.

It is true that the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Borrell recently stated that Russia’s dependence on EU technology is 45%, and its dependence on US technology is 21%, and it wants to challenge the US technological hegemony. It's still too early.

But Russia is waking up, which is a good start. President of the Russian Academy of Sciences Sergeyev also emphasized , "If you want to achieve technological leadership, you should not buy technology, but should learn it." will be more Much experience devoted to science and education.