Chapter 281 - 274 Flaws_1

New Yuan Aerospace Launch Site, position No.1.

From a distance, only a colossal spaceplane stood erect beside the launch tower, the New Yuan-2A rocket that bore it aloft was completely out of sight.

Since no second stage was needed, the New Yuan-2A stood at a maximum height of 51 meters, while the Pioneer, including the engines at its tail, approached a total length near 75 meters...

In terms of width, the three 6-meter-diameter rocket bodies of the New Yuan-2A with the spaces between them were around 20 meters, whereas the wingspan of the Pioneer reached 38 meters.

Particularly from the angle facing the scenic beach, most of the New Yuan-2A’s body was obscured by the Pioneer; from the side, the rocket seemed smaller than the spaceplane, and it appeared as though the center of gravity must be extremely unbalanced.

But in reality, once filled with fuel, the New Yuan-2A weighed about 3500 tons, while the Pioneer was virtually hollow and currently weighed just over 90 tons.

From inside the launch center, one could see the enormous Pioneer from 3 kilometers away with the naked eye; the impact was more intense than that of the New Yuan No. 3 rocket.

Director Huang found Lin Ju and Xie Liaofu standing together in the front three rows and said somewhat helplessly,

"Mr. Lin, you need to come up with a dedicated rocket transport vehicle. Our transfer vehicle has been run ragged back and forth because of the Pioneer."

Unlike typical rocket launches, it was very troublesome to vertically hoist the Pioneer due to its immense size. Both the Union and America’s large spaceplanes were horizontally combined with the rockets and then transported to the launch tower where they were erected.

The Xinyuan Launch Site and Qiongzhou Launch Site were still using universal transfer vehicles that could only transport rockets vertically, so the Pioneer was also installed vertically, and the assembly building couldn’t accommodate it; overhead work was mostly done outdoors, making equipment set-up and personnel work very difficult and cumbersome.

Lin Ju hadn’t thought about this aspect. He had been busy in Beijing with the Mars mission lately, leaving the affairs in Qiongzhou to Xie Liaofu.

The latter didn’t disappoint him and took the initiative to say,

"I’ve already contacted domestic engineering machinery manufacturers to custom-make one. With many H2 missions in the future, the two positions at the Xinyuan Launch Site won’t be enough. Boss, we should expand the number of positions, preferably by adding two more."

Lin Ju nodded. With Abe’s cooperative agreement a few days ago, there was more than enough money in New Yuan’s accounts. Two launch positions were a small matter and wouldn’t cost much.

As the three chatted there, not far away, Miklin Yevgeny and his colleague from OKB456, Vladimir Rachuk, were discussing the Pioneer set to launch in an hour.

Rachuk, "Although the New Yuan-2A is a bit slimmer than the Energy, it has greater thrust. The M220 has too much thrust for a single engine, and with 21 such engines, the thrust is nearly 4700 tons.

While the Energy can also reach more than 4000 tons of thrust, its inability to be recycled is a disadvantage."

Miklin, "Indeed, the grid fin recovery method of the New Yuan-2 is too risky, like using chopsticks to catch a broom’s bristles thrown from the 10th floor. It demands too much from electronic control technology, a skill we will lack for the next five years."

Rachuk, "However, the Moon project also requires these huge rockets, and if we can’t recycle them, it will be too costly. The Yenisei/Don rockets lack this potential. Looking ahead, it’s imperative that we have recyclable rockets."

Miklin, "Director Borisov came this time, he may be intending to purchase a customized New Yuan recovery system. Maybe then Russia could also have its recyclable rockets."

Rachuk, "That’s not our technology! Unless they are willing to transfer the technology to us, Russia’s recyclable rockets are of limited use. They can simply shut down the rockets via satellite, leaving us unable to do anything!

Additionally, it’s not as if we don’t have recyclable rockets, right? We have our own usable recycling technology."

Miklin, "You mean..."

Rachuk, "Energy 2, gliding recovery, the entire rocket capable of re-use, safer, and most of its development was already completed during the Union era. It’s time to revive it; it’s more practical than vertical recovery."

Miklin didn’t know how to respond. He was more familiar with the Energy 2 Rocket than Rachuk, but glide recovery had its own drawbacks: it was too heavy when empty.

The eight grid fins of the New Yuan-2 weighed no more than a ton in total, while just the folding wings of the Energy 2’s boosters were nearly that heavy.

But Rachuk made a valid point, the technology for gliding recovery was much less difficult, and at least Russia’s electronics industry could handle it; other fancier methods of recovery placed too high demands on the control systems.

He glanced at Yuri, who was deep in conversation with the space agency, pondering the cost and feasibility of reviving the Energy 2 program.

...

"Countdown, one minute."

At 11:29 AM, the sky remained clear, and the three boosters of the modified New Yuan-2A emitted large amounts of white vapor.

The live broadcast camera switched to a closeup of the Dream Chaser’s body, its integral thermal protection layer was extremely smooth, almost like that of a commercial jet.

The NACA engineers and military-industrial complex personnel watching the stream on YouTube fell silent, deeply sensing the generational advantage of the Dream Chaser.

An integral full-life thermal tile, something that Boeing had deeply researched at the start of the Space Shuttle program, yet even up to the X37B and the Dream Chaser Era, they had not reached this level.

"...7, 6, main engine ignition!"

The modified New Yuan-2A’s enhanced core stage fired first, its throttling valves opened halfway before the two universal boosters ignited.

The seven finely-tuned M220 engines on each booster produced greater thrust, with a single booster generating about 1680 tons of thrust,

The exhaust plumes from the twenty-one engines rushed into the deflector trench below and burst out from the right side of the launch platform diagonally upward. The spreading gases quickly dispersed, and before they fully enveloped the platform, the modified New Yuan-2A, along with the Dream Chaser, detached from the launch pad.

Although the Dream Chaser’s mass of over 100 tons was negligible for the booster, the aerodynamic factors caused by the large craft within the atmosphere had to be considered. To adjust its center of gravity, the Dream Chaser had to be launched at an angle from the start.

The twenty-one engines, divided into several parts, swung to various degrees to adjust the direction of the thrust, making the Dream Chaser, perched on an inclined modified New Yuan-2A rocket, look like a bear riding a raft as it soared into the sky.

Because of the low thrust-to-weight ratio, the compound body had a clearly visible movement trajectory at low altitude, with the long rocket tail flame sweeping over about a kilometer of forest.

Director Huang: ...

Without a doubt, such high temperatures in the exhaust gas would definitely burn a large swath of forest again; trees shouldn’t be planted near the launch site.

But the beachgoers and those in front of the cameras only had their attention on the Dream Chaser, which spent a longer time flying within the atmosphere and could be clearly observed for a good while.

The modified New Yuan-2A, once describable as a colossal rocket, looked tiny under the Dream Chaser, like three missiles carried by a fighter jet, with the high-altitude methane engine’s exhaust flame being very pale in color, creating a striking contrast.

The three six-meter diameter boosters and the Dream Chaser’s cross-sectional area were also exceptionally large, and once they broke the sound barrier, a huge air flow ring could be seen in the middle of the compound body, still visible from a great height.

The engines of the modified New Yuan-2A operated for a long time, and only when the compound body had become blurry in the ground camera did one finally see two white dots separating from the compound body—those were the boosters detaching to commence recovery operations.

The extra fuel loaded into the core stage enabled the flight to last an additional 40 seconds, allowing the Dream Chaser to glide for a while before its main engine worked for a dozen more seconds to adjust its orbit.

It couldn’t be helped, much like the Energy rockets, the modified New Yuan-2A, strictly speaking, had no second stage. The first stage could only send the spaceplane just beyond the atmosphere to a low orbit of 200 kilometers. To reach a 300 to 400-kilometer orbit, the spaceplane had to fly a bit more on its own, but that didn’t require much fuel.

Inside the launch center, whether it was the Dream Chaser itself or the data sent back from the monitoring systems, everything showed normal and had reached the planned speed, which essentially meant the launch was successful.

Xie Liaofu’s face was also smiling, but it suddenly froze.

Lin Ju asked with concern, "What’s wrong, old Kesafo?"

Xie Liaofu replied, "I just thought of a problem. The core stage controlled the throttle valve to fly a bit longer and nearly left the atmosphere. Recovering it from there is basically like recovering a second stage—there shouldn’t be any issues with the booster, right?"