Chapter 112 - 108: Eventful Autumn_1

When Lin Ju saw the modified version of the Artemis program, he almost choked on his water.

America’s satellite-launching capability is still not at all weak...

Although the lunar mission had been initiated since the 2000s, it was much later when it came to SLS. How much later?

It wasn’t until July 2015, which was just the month before last, that the SLS rocket was supposed to have completed its overall design!

They claimed they would launch the first SLS in December 2016, but in his previous life, that wouldn’t happen until November 2022.

Even counting from the debut of the rocket, it would have to be at least 2020.

Advancing it by a full six years, they wouldn’t really be spurring a space race, would they?

If that were the case, then he would have no choice but... to add more fuel to the fire!

On September 27, on the last day of "World Moon Week," New Yuan announced its plan to conduct a manned lunar landing using the H2 nuclear thermal aerospace plane, further stating that it was a joint international moon landing operation with Abe.

As for the Forward Space Station, Lin Ju was still hesitant to go public with it, but even the released part was shocking enough.

Nuclear thermal rocket engines, space shuttle moon landings? You’re more aggressive than NACA and CASA!

However, compared to the two space agencies that raised the stakes to the MAX within a few days, New Yuan’s moon landing plan indicated it would be completed before 2020 instead of 2019, postponing it by a year.

And then, Ma Yilong made his move.

In addition to announcing that his Heavy Falcon Rocket would soon have its maiden flight, setting a record for the largest private enterprise rocket and surpassing New Yuan-2, he also stated that Space X was going to initiate moon and Mars colonization projects and claimed that a spacecraft for interstellar colonization was under development.

It was reported that this interstellar colony spacecraft could return in one piece from space, also be used for rapid travel within Earth’s atmosphere, and "will have an unprecedented weight," while casually releasing many conceptual images of Mars colonization.

Old Ma, with the successful recovery of Falcon 9 behind him, was still exuding confidence, and now that he was stimulated by the lunar mission, he might well come up with something.

In Lin Ju’s previous life, the earliest concept design for the Starship wasn’t until 2019. It was uncertain whether it might come out several years earlier.

All of this was triggered by Abe’s 6.5 billion US Dollars, but it successfully leveraged hundreds of billions of dollars in the aerospace industry; if the old national king knew about this, who knows if he might die of excitement~

The Aerospace Development Committee, along with the Dawn project and the specially approved funding of 30 billion, instantly got the leisurely space agency busy.

The thought of moon landing alone makes one’s scalp tingle; rocket launches send off not just fuel and funds, but also the already scant hair of the chief engineers.

The development of CZ-5 by the First Academy had to be pushed back, as they had to begin the overall design of the CZ-10. As it would need four boosters capable of delivering 978 tons of thrust, both the core stage and connectors had to go through special design, which was a challenging aspect;

Manufacturing a 5-meter diameter rocket body consumes a lot of production capacity, and it was necessary to urge Jingu to increase manpower, or else it would be impossible to produce so many rockets.

The Sixth Academy started working overtime to finalize the design for the YF130. While its performance figures were mediocre and not reusable, its one advantage was thrust: achieving a single combustion chamber thrust of 240 tons was no small feat, and the second and third stages’ cryogenic engines also required optimized designs.

The Fifth Academy had to speed up the completion of the new-generation manned spacecraft, which, weighing in at 21.6 tons, would serve as the life and command module of the lunar lander and was a critical component. There were also the lunar orbit station, the lander, and so forth—many complications, but fortunately, much of it was outsourced.

Other institutes were not idle either, all of them started to race against time to complete their assigned subsystems, not daring to drag behind the CZ-10 project.

However, these efforts had not yet impacted the Tiangong Phase One project, since most of the rockets and spacecraft required were already available, squeezing out a bit of extra effort was still manageable.

On October 7th, the last day of the National Day week, Tiangong No.2, carried by an improved CZ-2F rocket, was dispatched into low Earth orbit from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center.

A day later, the New Yuan 5B medium-lift rocket made its maiden flight in Qiongzhou.

Featuring a core stage and four boosters, all five components of the New Yuan 5B were recoverable, making it cost-effective though quite troublesome to use.

Because each recoverable part required a landing area, it necessitated simultaneous recoveries at five separate landing fields.

Ordinarily, the same facilities could be used for both launching and landing simple rockets, but due to the New Yuan 5B’s space demands, Qiongzhou had to construct a circular array of eight landing pads, separated by 1.2 kilometers, as well as a central landing pad—essentially a plot covered in thermal insulation material.

There wasn’t much to see with the New Yuan 5B’s launch, roughly equivalent to an plus-sized CZ-2F or CZ-7, but the spectacle of its recovery was quite magnificent:

A core stage with a diameter of 3.5 meters in the center, surrounded by four 2.5-meter boosters that descended at almost the same altitude, synchronously unfolding their support legs to land, making quite a sight from a distance, resembling some sort of formation, especially striking against the backdrop of the exhaust flames.

There were additional complexities with the recovery, but thanks to the really low cost of only 30 million per complete recalibration, compared to New Yuan-2’s 130 million, it was merely a fraction of the latter’s.

It just looked a bit uncoordinated to mount an H1 atop a 3.5-meter-diameter rocket, resembling a heavy-headed, lightweight mallet.

The Aerospace Agency had mixed feelings about New Yuan 5B’s maiden flight; those who were delighted saw a significant price drop for launching astronauts with H1, while those who were distressed were from the sixth institute, envious of the New Yuan 5B’s core stage’s 380-ton full-flow LOX/kerosene engine.

With a single combustion chamber, a specific impulse of up to 340 seconds, full-flow, and reusability, the YF130 seemed to have no advantage besides thrust.

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Unfortunately, the old man, Tang Weitian, did not have time to attend, as part of the team responsible for integrating the K120, they were fully committed to overcoming the technical difficulties of the YF130.

K120’s designs were quite refreshing for the Aerospace Agency and provided significant inspiration for subsequent developments, hence the bold declaration of mastering the YF130 in 9 months, which would have otherwise taken at least two years.

...

"A time fraught with events, a time fraught with events indeed."

As Lin Ju spoke, he was squatting on a ridge in a cornfield, dressed like a rural youth left behind wearing a tracksuit and casual trousers, watching the busy harvesters in the distance.

This was no ordinary harvester; it was produced by the former New Yuan Town tractor factory, fitted with aerospace-grade parts, and adapted from the XW151 intelligent vehicle driving system into the XW151F type smart farming system.

Not only could it zigzag back and forth across square fields, but it was also able to navigate using fixed beacons, autonomously leaving the garage, entering the field, harvesting, unloading, washing and then returning to the garage, all without human intervention.

No manual work was involved, nor were there wages or heatstroke subsidies to be issued; it could operate 24 hours a day, seeing no difference between day and night through its infrared cameras.

Once the electrification of agricultural machinery was achieved, there wouldn’t even be a need to refuel or do maintenance; with a high integration electric drive system that required no servicing, it would recharge automatically within the warranty period and return to the manufacturer for maintenance when the time arrived.

While striving to reach for the stars, having one’s feet firmly on the ground also felt pretty good.