Chapter 181 - 177: I Can’t Bear to Part_1

Before the launch, Lin Ju had collected internal opinions to decide the paint scheme of the first rocket.

The top three choices included three colors: silver, white, and a pale blue.

Silver was the first to be eliminated.

The reason was unclear, but it was said that the boss personally passed on it.

When Lin Ju saw the silver paint scheme, he instantly felt uneasy. If you didn’t look at the stages above, it was just like the Starship!

The diameter was similar, the height was similar, and the thrust was also over 7000 tons. The last thing he saw in his previous life looked like this!

Though one shouldn’t be superstitious, Lin Ju chose the most conservative and traditional white paint scheme to avoid another grand voyage to a parallel world.

White made New Yuan No. 3 look even more majestic and towering.

At 10:55 in the morning, 5 minutes to countdown.

Xiao Okada stood next to Zhang Chuanyong. They were not in the VIP seats of the launch center, but instead had found a nice spot on the beach.

Zhang Chuanyong, red-faced, swept his gaze over the dense crowd on the beach and couldn’t help saying:

"If we were still in the Island Country, we probably would never see so many people so passionate about a rocket launch!"

Xiao Okada, "It’s not that people aren’t enthusiastic about rocket launches; it’s just that JAXA doesn’t have the capability to make giant rockets. Maybe what they say is right, small countries are destined not to have anything to do with giants."

Zhang Chuanyong, "Yet, the Yamato, launched 76 years ago, remains the largest battleship ever built by Asians, and the largest battleship in the world."

Xiao Okada, "When the Yamato was born, it was already outdated, but the New Yuan No. 3 is still the pinnacle of world technology. Even the Americans don’t have such a huge rocket!"

Zhang Chuanyong, "Fortunately, we are Chinese people, and we should be proud of it."

Xiao Okada, "All Asians should be proud of it."

The final countdown interrupted their discussion as the hundreds of thousands of people on the beach shouted together, their voices filling the sky.

The launch center issued the ignition order, and the 19 engines began to ignite one by one.

At the same time, the launch pad sprayed water at the bottom of the rocket. In just a few seconds, the amount of water sprayed would reach 700 tons, which would carry away heat and prevent the launch pad from being burned.

There were three sets of ignitions for the engines, 12, 6, and 1, from outer to inner, igniting two diagonally-opposed engines at a time, checking their working status before proceeding to the next ignition sequence.

It took 19 engines, and a total of 10 ignitions, which consumed dozens of seconds.

From a distance on the sandy beach, Zhang Chuanyong and Xiao Okada only saw a large cloud of smoke emerge from below the rocket and spread rapidly without the rocket having even taken off, covering the entire area of the launch site, almost obscuring the nearby kilometer of forest.

If it were the first sighting, one might think that a chemical factory had exploded somewhere, occupying all visible areas with a mushroom cloud-like spread.

But as the thrust gradually increased, the 19 engines erupted with a maximum force of about 7600 tons. The powerful airflow, after separating from the launch platform, spread furiously in all directions, dispersing the grey smoke and revealing the white body of the rocket at the center.

The sun was already up, but it seemed as though another sun was igniting and expanding on the ground, with a brightness that, for a moment, matched or even surpassed the sun in the sky. People could clearly see the semicircular halo of the exhaust flame spreading like ripples in water.

Lin Ju had a strong feeling that if they chose to launch New Yuan No. 3 at night, it would surely light up the entire sky like the sun, with daylight intensity.

Unlike New Yuan-2, New Yuan No. 3 used kerosene as fuel, which produced a bright orange exhaust flame. The long, long tail flame was very clear, providing a spectacular visual effect.

Originally, the K380 was known for generating thick exhaust flames on powerful rocket engines, a characteristic clearly shown by the New Yuan-2 series. But the flames from 19 K380 engines coming together in front of the 11-meter rocket body actually seemed to slim down.

The 19 engines’ flames merged into an elongated cone, yet still did not surpass the length of the 147-meter rocket body, unmistakably demonstrating the oppressive force of the world’s number one rocket.

On the beach, inside the launch center, and even far away in the city, people could feel the high-frequency vibrations through the ground—this was the roar of more than 7000 tons of thrust.

The 19 K380 liquid oxygen and kerosene engines consumed 1130 kilograms of fuel per second for each engine. When all were fired, 21.5 tons of fuel poured out every second.

Each engine boasted a power of 24.6 MW, and the combined power of the 19 engines reached an astonishing 468 MW, nearly three times that of Saturn V!

Xiao Okada felt goosebumps erupt all over his body, a tingling sensation rushing from his spine to his brain, as if his heart had been yanked out by New Yuan No. 3 and carried upwards into flight.

Before New Yuan No. 3 had entirely cleared the launch pad, the engine’s thrust made him think an earthquake was about to happen.

As someone who grew up in an earthquake zone, he had no doubts about the terrifying impact the ground was experiencing.

But even as the rocket ascended, the surroundings trembled and rattled non-stop as if explosions were constantly erupting, and within two to three seconds, the roaring sounds were drowned out by the ringing in his ears.

New Yuan No. 3 ascended like the sun!

He couldn’t breathe, the pressure on his chest was as great as inside a combustion chamber.

"It’s a miracle, it’s a miracle!"

His mind repeated the Japanese phrase, but what he shouted was, "Long live China!"

Zhang Chuanyong was startled, but then he too began to shout.

Among the crowd, there were two naturalized engineers who continuously cheered for China.

...

Ma Yilong watched intently at the footage in the tracking camera; from the ground perspective, he saw 19 extremely bright orange spots burning intensely.

Just like 19 suns, these engines burned as steadily as the sun itself, and Ma Yilong couldn’t spot any sign of trouble.

In the launch center, the space agency big shots were equally tense, afraid that the half-century-old tragedy of the N1 would be repeated.

Mainly because the CZ-9 they had already decided on also used 29 YF135 kerosene and liquid oxygen engines, just like the B4 boosters in Ma’s Starship PPT.

Both featuring an 11-meter diameter and multi-engine parallel staging, the CZ-9 was undoubtedly a bold attempt; it would be great if New Yuan No. 3 could test the waters.

Now 60 seconds had passed, all 19 engines were working normally, and half a century later, resonance had not destroyed New Yuan No. 3 like it did N1; the latter’s condition was as stable as the ideal scenario.

"Stage separation!"

Different from all previous test-fired rockets, the upper stages of New Yuan No. 3 weren’t just dead weights; the third stage was, but the second stage was genuinely equipped with four H240 engines that could provide a total thrust of 1120 tons in vacuum. It would push the dead weights to orbital height before turning around to re-enter the atmosphere and burn up.

At this moment, including the fuel, the detached first stage had a remaining mass of over 200 tons. It would rely on multiple engines from the middle and outer rings to brake in unison, decelerating together.

The diameter was too large at 11 meters; controlling deceleration with a single engine would cause too much variation, so to enhance stability during recovery, 6 of the 12 outer layer engines, 3 from the middle, and one from the core could ignite for braking. The outer two layers had a smaller gimbal range, mainly relying on the middle one.

The 77-meter-long rocket body also posed challenges. To prevent the overly long rocket body from bearing too much lateral load, New Yuan No. 3 would intermittently ignite at the beginning of descent to maintain a vertical posture.

This would slightly increase fuel consumption and recovery time, but it would best ensure the structural integrity of the rocket body.

Lin Ju had full confidence in the engineers and the manufacturing capabilities of the B-level Base; he had already relaxed and was talking to Guo Shen.

Lin Ju, "Let’s also recover the second stage of New Yuan No. 3. Those four H240 engines alone cost over a hundred million, too expensive; I can’t bear it."

Guo Shen: ...

Although the second stages of previous rockets were expensive too because they mostly used cryogenic hydrogen and oxygen engines with at most one H240, these New Yuan-improved closed-cycle expansion hydrogen and oxygen engines were priced at over 20 million each, more expensive than the K380.

Using four engines on New Yuan No. 3’s second stage was truly extravagant. With 16 launch missions planned for the year, that amounted to dumping at least 64 H240s, throwing away over a billion yuan; even Lin Ju felt overwhelmed.

Besides, hydrogen and oxygen engines combusted so cleanly that they inherently had excellent reusability. Lin was beginning to regret being too generous before.

Guo Shen thought for a moment. Since they were designed to operate in vacuum, the H240 (vacuum version) had a very large nozzle diameter to achieve high efficiency, and fitting five engines was a tight squeeze. Even if they managed to fit them, it would be difficult to control their motion.

Using four engines together for braking and recovery would require the development of a new control system, and with limited gimbal angles, directional control would be difficult.