Chapter 320 - 313 Blue Moon and BE4_1

"Booster separation!"

"Separation complete!"

Impacted by the explosive bolts, the four boosters, which provided over 80% of the thrust for the first stage, separated in succession after their fuel was exhausted, forming a perfect Korolyov cross in the eerie flames.

However, they were not falling freely. Compared to the Remote One Booster and Core Stage One, the CZ-10A Remote 2 Rocket had several small grid fins, which were not for recovery, but to divert and control the splashdown area as it fell.

Although Qiongzhou Launch Site Five is located at a lower latitude, the debris from the rocket launch could pass over several countries in the South Sea. To avoid international disputes, rocket designs typically avoid having debris fall into densely populated areas.

The design of the original timeline’s CZ-5B rocket, with its semi-orbital design and extended Core Stage One burn time, was also motivated by this consideration.

The CZ-10 was different; when the Dawn project began, the first mission of the space agency was to build a qualified rocket. Design compromises for the splashdown area were given low priority in order to save time, to the point of being outright ignored.

As a result, the debris splashdown area for the Remote One Rocket was not deliberately controlled, with most of it hitting the islands of Luzon, and a section of booster debris even damaged farmlands, causing quite a stir at the time.

Although these were all minor issues compared to landing on the Moon, the Remote 2 Rocket still added several hundred kilograms of dead weight to somewhat control the splashdown area, aiming to fall into the sea as much as possible.

A short while after the booster separation, Core Stage One also ran out of fuel and detached. The four highly anticipated YF77G engines ignited simultaneously, adjusting the flow more liberally at first to correct the direction slightly before gradually increasing thrust. Once completely past the low-density atmosphere, the four YF77G engines could output close to 300 tons of thrust.

The second and third stages of the CZ-10 were the focus of its payload capability. Researchers from both Long March and YF77G were busy moving around inside the launch center to check the engine status.

Until the conclusion of the first stage of engine acceleration, no abnormal signals were transmitted by the engine sensors.

Satellites and measuring ships also sent back the determined orbital data to confirm that so far, the rocket had no issues and was about to accelerate again shortly into a trans-lunar injection orbit.

But their hearts had not yet settled. With a total of six YF77 engines in the second and third stages, unless both the spacecraft and the lander module smoothly entered lunar orbit, they could not say that the YF77G had become reliable.

The journey to the Moon took 3 days, and the YF77G engines had to start and stop several times. If no incidents occurred throughout, it would mean that the space agency’s development of large-thrust hydrolox engines had finally passed muster.

...

"Started!"

In the Blue Origin test site located in the desert, BE4 (M1) underwent another ignition test. The throttle valve increased to 100% within 50 seconds as liquid pure oxygen and methane rushed into the combustion chamber, creating a powerful tail flame upon mixing and burning.

On the horizontal thrust gauge in the control room, numbers leaped crazily and escalated quickly, soon breaking the six-digit threshold.

After a full 180 seconds of testing, the BE4 left a series of numbers on the measuring instruments: 547,000 lb, 550,000 pounds of thrust, approximately 250 tons.

Jeff Bezos and Bruno Bumuno, the director of the America Launch Alliance, high-fived each other, both elated by the BE4’s first successful test run.

Unlike the original timeline, where progress constantly lagged and development often stalled, the Artemis program, due to urgent commencement, had NACA directly appoint Blue Origin as the lunar lander contractor and provided substantial financial and technical support.

Up to now, Blue Origin had received 3.8 billion US dollars solely for the "Blue Moon" lander project, and its technical muscle had significantly grown. Various non-technical requirements, too, were given the green light all the way.

What’s more crucial is that, while guiding Ma’s full-flow staged combustion methane "Raptor" engine, Blue Origin’s BE4 also received support.

Compared to "Raptor," the BE4 still uses the more primitive oxygen-rich staged combustion cycle, but its thrust is much greater, overall more advanced than New Yuan’s M220, reaching a thrust of 250 tons.

The success of BE4’s 180-second test fire meant that Blue Origin finally claimed the throne of the world’s leading methane engine.

For Bezos, the initial success of BE4 meant that the New Glenn Rocket, which can achieve single-stage-to-orbit and boasts a carrying capacity of up to 45 tons, could enter substantive development; Bruno was glad that ULA’s new Vulcan Centaur rocket would have a qualified engine.

ULA’s rockets mostly serve the American military, with Delta-IV and Atlas-V being the mainstays. Delta-IV has a limited number of hydrogen-oxygen engines left, only one remaining, and Atlas-V has 17 in stock and is the current mainstay.

The Atlas-V uses Russia’s RD181 engines, and all 100 purchased in the early years have been fully delivered. America is preparing to develop a disposable rocket with its own engines that could replace both the Delta-IV and Atlas-V; this is Vulcan.

BE4 is one of the backup engines for Vulcan, and now it seems pretty much settled.

Don’t look at Falcon 9 being reusable, but there is still a lot of demand for disposable, cheap rockets with LEO payloads ranging from 10 to 27 tons; ULA is not losing out at all.

Jeff Bezos: "Bruno, don’t you really want to have a fascinating space flight with me?"

Bruno: "Thank you, but I’m quite busy recently..."

Jeff Bezos might be the most "reckless" billionaire Bruno had ever seen. Last year, New Shepard’s suborbital rocket completed two successful recoveries, so Bezos planned to conduct a crewed flight after one more successful recovery, carrying 6 passengers for the first time, including himself and his brother Mark Bezos.

Regardless, Bruno truly admired that courage, at least he didn’t dare to ride it.

Jeff Bezos didn’t react unusually to Bruno’s reluctance, as not everyone has the courage to try new things like him.

So he turned to Bruno to complain: "NACA is too impatient, do you know, Director Claire recently even requested me to advance the completion time of the official lander from November to July, which is simply impossible.

Moreover, I’m still modifying it to be launched by Heavy Falcon, which is a huge task."

The "Blue Moon" lander differs from China’s Dawn project’s lander; it is integral, flying down and back in one piece, and Blue Origin had started the conception and preliminary conceptual design quite early.

The dry weight of "Blue Moon" is 14 tons, but it can reach 45 tons when fueled up, originally designed to be compatible with New Glenn Rocket launches.

Since the New Glenn Rocket is single-stage-to-orbit, "Blue Moon" needs to load a lot of fuel to fly itself to the Moon for deceleration and landing, and New Glenn’s rocket body has a diameter of 7 meters, much wider than Heavy Falcon’s core stage, which is 3.7 meters wide; using the latter for launch would require a lot of modifications.

The biggest compromise was to maintain the weight while reducing the diameter to 5.8 meters, which increased the original length of 16 meters to 23 meters...

You should know that the "Blue Moon" lander was already somewhat tall; with these changes, it’s almost the height of a 7-story building. So, the attitude control during descent has to be especially mindful, and the astronauts even have to use an elevator to move up and down, otherwise climbing stairs would be too strenuous.

A moon lander equipped with an elevator, heavy functional mission requirements, complex structural design, and a high center of gravity, though all validated as feasible by NACA, still raised concerns among many people.

This naturally included Bruno, and when he learned that NACA even demanded an acceleration of the "Blue Moon" manufacturing progress, his eyelids twitched.

Executing the Moon landing plans so hastily, can all the inspection procedures really be completed...