Chapter 416 - 407 Ban Chao_1

June 18th, Qiongzhou.

Liu Ming, accompanied by six astronauts, walked on the red carpet, waving to the crowd on either side.

The CZ-7 rocket was already on standby at the launch site, topped with the new generation manned spaceship "Ban Chao."

Since the last Shenzhou, Shenzhou XI, was launched at the beginning of 2016, the first type of manned spaceship had quietly completed its mission in an undisclosed state, and in the time that followed, the Space Agency caught a few rides on H1, using the Dawn Spaceship at the end of last year.

Because the command module of the Dawn Spaceship was reusable and not a one-time use like "Shenzhou," naming them with "XX number" became somewhat confusing. Except for retaining the convention in the Dawn program, the naming convention for regular launches had already been changed.

The "Dawn 2" command module, which had gone up at the beginning of the year and then fallen back, was decided after a review and assessment to be turned into a regular near-Earth orbit shuttle, with a maximum crew of seven.

At the same time, it was refitted with a small service module for near-Earth orbit, reducing the total mass from the deep-space version’s 22.6 tons to 14 tons, which theoretically even a CZ-3B could manage with some effort.

There are currently two spaceships in service, "Ban Chao" and "Zhang Qian," the latter having been reused twice already.

This time, "Ban Chao" will replace the seven astronauts on the Tiangong Space Station for a 12-month mission, during which there will be one Tianzhou-2 cargo mission to deliver some experimental equipment for conducting scientific experiments.

Compared to the past, the astronaut team is becoming bolder—for example, the crew of seven for this mission are all newcomers apart from Liu Ming. This would have been somewhat inconceivable in the past.

Just counting the professional astronauts registered with the Space Agency, the number who have been to space exceeds 75 and is continuing to rise at an extremely high rate, not to mention the non-professionals.

Space has become normalized.

Liu Ming was no longer as excited as before and even missed the time on the ground; after all, spending over a year in space is no small test for a person.

If one could say he was unaffected due to his experience, the other "fledglings" also seemed somewhat distracted, just like the many media present, which nevertheless lacked some of their previous intensity.

A "rumor" had already spread across the internet: Dawn III would undertake a moon landing mission, and there would also be a lunar space station.

The sources of the leaks online were a mess, but they knew it was true, and a press release was due out that evening.

Compared to the Moon’s distance of 380,000 kilometers, the highest orbit of the space stations is only about 400 kilometers, not even leaving the atmosphere.

Only by conquering the Moon, do you earn the right to call it space travel.

The number of people who will ultimately undertake moon missions on the Dawn is limited; three people will crew the third mission, with two landing on the Moon. It’s said that this will later change to a four-person crew, with three or all four landing, but the remaining total spots seem to be only about 40 for now, and that’s before accounting for spots reserved for astronauts from Italy, France, and Russia.

Then there are over a hundred people from Office 507 vying for those remaining thirty or so spots, at least a third of which need to be reserved for payload specialists, making the competition even fiercer.

On the other hand, there’s the Xinyuan Company, which, although not yet officially announced, everyone knows they certainly have a grandiose moon landing plan.

Deng Lei, who missed the moon-orbiting mission while on the space station, is one of those coming down during this crew transfer and is definitely preparing for a moon landing.

The Storm can transport at least seven people in one go, nearly double that of Dawn Spaceship. They won’t rest until they’ve sent hundreds of astronauts, will they?

...

In the Capital, at the CCAV studio, the host took a deep breath and, seeing the director’s cue, entered the zone with a smile on his face and a sense of pride as he began to speak:

"Good evening, dear viewers... Today’s main news includes... The CZ-10A Remote Three Rocket was shipped from Jingu Port today and embarked on its journey to Qiongzhou on board the Yuanwang 22 Rocket Transport Ship.

This marks the third launch mission of our nation’s Dawn Project. The Manned Space Flight Office has disclosed that this mission’s crew members are Zhang Zhiguang, Fang Lin, and Ding Jihua, who will undertake our country’s first manned lunar exploration mission!"

In front of TVs nationwide, those who had caught wind of the news online finally received the official announcement, plunging into sheer joy.

How profound was this joy? It was visible to the naked eye.

Even though it was still daylight at 19:00 in the height of summer, fireworks rising from all directions had already filled the sky, even visible from the base.

The researchers at Laboratory 304 cheerfully stood in an open space, enjoying the various fireworks displays.

Most of the fireworks came from the urban districts, where setting them off was undoubtedly banned. At that very moment, an army of urban management officers and fire brigades must be scouring the area in a state of high alert, while more and more people found loopholes to light their fireworks.

Near the base, there was also a "firework" not too far away that was visible to the naked eye – a humble white cylindrical object.

It was a New Yuan Six solid-fuel rocket. The base built these single-digit capacity small rockets mainly to expand the solid fuel technology tree and rarely used them for launch missions. But now, it was about to send a "Meridian" near-Earth satellite for network supplementation into orbit.

This satellite was quite special; it was an outlier within the Meridian satellite network, utilizing cutting-edge laser communication technology with a unique orbit that allowed it to stay close to the Thousand-Jin Stick Two most of the time.

After its launch, communication between the ground and the Thousand-Jin Stick Two would be relayed through this satellite, ensuring transmission by nearly uncrackable laser signals, further concealing the latter’s tracks.

This plan was proposed by Ye Changsi. He believed that the recent frequent communications between the laser laboratory and the Thousand-Jin Stick Two could easily arouse suspicion, and it was also an opportunity to test the laser communication technology.

Thus, this rather secretive satellite was promptly launched near the base using a solid-fuel rocket under the guise of "convenience." There were two more in the warehouse, ready to launch with less than 24 hours of preparation.

The timing couldn’t have been better. Launching at night, it was clearly the brightest firework of them all. Even a small, hundred-ton solid-fuel rocket could compete with the tail flames of liquid-fuel rockets a magnitude larger, nearly illuminating half the sky.

The base’s celebration of the lunar mission was limited to this.

Even Xie Miao was aware that the storehouse was already backlogged with various equipment and materials destined for the future Moon Base. Had it not been for the "meaningful" lunar landing, the base would have been capable of sending people over long ago.

What space race to the death? It was merely a challenging mining operation.

Thinking this way, a sedan with military plates and two Warrior off-roaders drove through the base’s main gate and came to a halt before them.

The person from the sedan was from the Security Bureau, evidently here to take Liu Si in for questioning again. The purpose of the two military vehicles was also related to him.

A lieutenant colonel and a full colonel arrived with three soldiers dressed in combat uniforms. The colonel walked up to Xie Miao, wrapping an arm around one of the soldiers and said:

"Director Xie, these three are my most trusted and favored soldiers, the finest any unit could ask for. You’ll need to return them to me whole and intact, it won’t do if they come back as simpletons."

Xie Miao: "Ah, wasn’t it supposed to be a voluntary selection? I’m hesitant to take them with you phrasing it like that."

"That’s not the case. Everything’s been laid out clearly in advance. These three earned their spots by besting everyone else in rounds of competitive selection."

Xie Miao: "..."