The novel “Saturn Run” by John Sandford and Ctein was published for the first time in 2015.

At Caltech everyone has little consideration for Sandy because they think he was hired only because his family is very rich but when he’s the one who realizes that in astronomical observations an object that is approaching Saturn and is slowing down has appeared, he ends up involved in the investigation on it. There’s no doubt that this is an artificial object and the American authorities want to send a mission hoping to contact anyone who’s traveling on that starship and at the same time to keep their discovery secret.

China has been organizing for years a manned mission to Mars but the Chinese also end up discovering the presence of an alien starship in the solar system. The Chinese plans get changed in a hurry to send their mission to Saturn with the goal of arriving there before the Americans. Between the two nations a new phase of their rivalry begins and the prize for the winner could consist in obtaining from the aliens technologies that are much more advanced than those developed by humans.