Chapter 123 - 119 Starship_1

Looking at the super-large cabin space nearly 5 meters wide in the video, Ma asked his assistant:

"Can we build a cabin section this wide?"

"We can, but the diameter of the Falcon 9 is only 3.7 meters. Such a large space station, almost 8 meters wide with the fairing, is too big. The Heavy Falcon has enough lift capacity, but it can’t launch it."

Ma said nothing, just propped his chin with his hand, thumb resting on the tip of his nose.

SpecaX had always prided itself as an explorer of the heavens, and even the repeated failures of the Falcon 9 had not shaken his confidence. But the emergence of Xinyuan Company truly put great pressure on Ma.

The upcoming Heavy Falcon was enough to compete with the New Yuan-2 rocket, but it was the limit for this configuration, and the rocket body was not as good as the rival’s.

In terms of manned flights, there was also a huge lag. The Second Generation Dragon Spaceship actually had the capability of manned flight, but it was estimated that there was still a lot of trouble before it could undertake manned flight missions.

The Artemis program’s basic parts had been completed through bidding. Lockheed Martin developed the Orion spacecraft, the service module was the responsibility of the European Space Agency, the majority of the lander was Blue Origin’s job, with only a small part given to SpecaX.

However, SpecaX’s role was still very important. The Heavy Falcon Rocket was currently the only heavy rocket capable of projecting 26 tons of material to the Moon. But this way, it couldn’t be reused, so they had to build two Heavy Falcons, and in the end, both would be discarded.

Three SLS, three Heavy Falcons—SpecaX already occupied a rather important position in the Artemis program, but Ma was still not satisfied.

Because Xinyuan had proposed an even more powerful New Yuan No. 3 mega-rocket and a nuclear-powered spaceplane, while his own Starship was still in the conceptual phase, with no concrete plans.

The "Raptor" liquid oxygen and methane engine, which would later lay the foundation for the Starship, had not yet been born. The first Raptor engine test was not until 2016, but it had already been positioned as SpecaX’s main engine of the future.

Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, with its BE4 engine, was also initially making slow progress, but after the success of the New Yuan-2, it immediately increased its investment. Once successful, its 250-ton thrust would be more powerful than Xinyuan’s M220.

"Artemis, too far behind."

Ma suddenly uttered, and his assistant knew the boss had a new idea:

"NACA selected Bezos’s Blue Moon Lander. Other than being big, it has no difference from the Apollo program. The spacecraft and lander are still separate, still requiring multiple dockings, which is a complicated process.

SpecaX has to be ahead of everyone. Let’s think of a way to avoid making the astronauts run between different cabin segments, but to create a spacecraft that can land on the Moon’s surface and return."

Ma Yilong opened the memo app on his phone, drawing a vague outline with distorted lines—a bullet-shaped spacecraft with a flat head and two small wings on both the top and bottom.

"Such a spacecraft could not only land on Mars and the Moon but also within the Earth’s atmosphere. It is a true spaceship, and I’ll call it ’Starship’.

I know there are larger thrust liquid oxygen kerosene engines in the factory, but methane is the fuel that can be produced on future planets. So, we will continue to focus on methane propulsion... I understand what to do now."

Three days later, when Lin Ju sat in the back seat of the Colorful Cloud trainer, flown by Deng Lei, he checked his phone before takeoff and stumbled upon a special news alert on Little Blue Bird. Ma had announced SpecaX’s next goal.

It was the Starship, different from what he remembered, but its overall design had already emerged.

"This damned world line correction force."

"Huh? Boss, what did you say?"

The canopy had not yet been closed, and the V8 air-cooled gasoline engine, made by Southern Automobiles, drove the propeller, generating a huge noise, so that Deng Lei could not quite make out what Lin Ju was saying.

"I’m saying, work hard, and you’ll be up there in the next space station rotation!"

Lin Ju’s voice wasn’t much different from before, but miraculously, Deng Lei could hear him very clearly, excitedly taking off with his boss at high speed above the woods surrounding the airport.

The Colorful Cloud’s cruising speed was only 290km/h, which for Deng Lei was as slow as a kite, but for Lin Ju, who was busily observing the scenery on the ground, it was a novel experience, and he was shouting excitedly over the radio.

Meanwhile, air traffic control was incessantly demanding that Deng Lei not perform any stunt maneuvers, to ensure the highest success rate for the ejection seats.

As the boss, Lin Ju was of course taught one-on-one by a top-tier flight instructor, attending theory classes followed by daily flying experiences, while other company trainees were taught in small groups by retired pilots who were hired and could also be taken flying, albeit for much shorter durations.

...

On November 24th, the CZ-6 Yaosi rocket was erected at the Bingzhou Space Launch Center.

This rocket had no satellite mission and everything above the first stage was ballast, clearly intended for testing.

After a successful recovery in August using the recovery control system purchased from Xinyuan Company, the pressure on the Eighth Institute was actually greater, taking all the data from the Yaosan mission to improve their own recovery system.

The bus system was upgraded, with the RX01 card purchased, doubling the parallel processing capability.

The attitude library accumulated a lot of data, after all, they had one successful experience, and it was right to put effort into this.

Although Xinyuan’s recovery control system was encrypted, its peripheral parts were inevitably analyzed and applied to their own system.

To maximize the success rate, the Eighth Institute creatively developed a set of simulation software to simulate rocket recovery testing, and for the sake of realism, a great deal of data was gathered and then run on a supercomputer. The new generation recovery system, internally codenamed "Cloud Open," had already been simulated thousands of times in the supercomputer and was virtually faultless.

At 14:00 in the afternoon, the CZ-6 Yaosi rocket conducted its fourth test of its own recovery system.

Amid the researchers’ tense concerns, the rocket smoothly ascended with a bright orange tail flame.

By the way, the Sixth Institute, which had gone all out to get the YF130 done, somehow still had the strength to tweak the YF100K a bit more, increasing the thrust to 130 tons by raising the pressure.

A few minutes later, the CZ-6 Yaosi rocket descended toward the landing site at a certain angle, not due to any problem but to leave enough room for adjustments.

As the rocket slowly neared the ground, beads of sweat the size of beans kept surfacing on He Tang’s face; he was nearly forgetting to breathe.

meters, 80 meters... at 15 meters, the support legs deployed in one second, the engine’s thrust gradually decreased, and right before the sharp ends of the legs were about to touch the ground, the engines were shut off to prevent backwash from eroding the piping at the base.

The first-stage rocket bounced heavily on the ground and then stood firm.

The researchers forcibly restrained their impulse to rush into the hot landing zone, excitedly tossing He Tang in the air, as applause rang out continuously.

...

"This afternoon at around 15:00, our country successfully conducted a rocket recovery test. The rocket type is the reusable CZ-6, developed by the Eighth Institute of the Aerospace Bureau.

During the development process, the team faced many difficulties and had experienced failures, but under the leadership of the chief engineer and Vice President of the Eighth Institute He Tang, innovative research methods were employed, the staff’s fighting spirit was fortified, and computer simulation technology was utilized to significantly reduce data collection costs, granting our country self-owned intellectual property rights for recovery technology..."

In the evening, Lin Ju, watching the CCAV news broadcast content, pursed his lips in dissatisfaction.