Chapter 422 - 413 Huayin Treaty_1

Chang’an.

At the Aerospace 6th Institute’s test stand, the YF135 bidirectional gimballed reusable prototype engine was undergoing a 1500-second long test fire.

The engine outputted more than 400 tons of thrust at a flow rate that reached 110%, consuming over 2 tons of fuel every second, making a rumble so loud that it felt like the ground was shaking and the mountains were swaying.

Under such circumstances, the hydraulic gimbal mechanism was still swaying with the control signals, testing the performance of the engine in various steering ranges.

"This is the new generation of ultra-high-thrust liquid oxygen kerosene rocket engines we are developing, with a maximum sea-level thrust of over 4,000 kilonewtons, on par with the K380 engine.

However, compared to the K380, the YF135 has been improved to a certain extent in terms of volume and structure, and the production process has been simplified. It is also the world’s largest thrust kerosene rocket engine with a single combustion chamber."

Tang Weitian’s introduction, coupled with the spectacular test scene, elicited a range of expressions from a group of foreigners with different skin colors.

Russian experts were discussing the technological gap between the YF135 and the RD181, while French and Italian personnel had grave expressions as they pondered the terrifying power of the YF135’s core turbo pump. As for the representatives of the other eight smaller nations, they could only show expressions of admiration.

"The YF135 is just the beginning. Based on it, we will develop a liquid oxygen and methane engine, with a single combustion chamber thrust exceeding 300 tons, and potentially supporting up to 450 tons of thrust, becoming the world’s most powerful liquid engine.

This will also be a reusable engine. In the future, all our liquid rocket engines will be reusable, building on the current foundation to reduce the cost per kilogram of launch vehicles by more than 25%."

Representatives from 11 countries applauded in unison. Regardless of understanding or not, the point was that China’s aerospace capabilities were highly impressive at the moment.

It was now June 28th, representatives from eleven nations that have manned spaceflight cooperation with the Space Agency, including four nations from ASEAN, four from West Asia, and Russia, Italy, and France, gathered in Chang’an to visit the engine production base here.

Not just engines, the technologically advanced 6th Institute also had many vast plans in the works that left the delegates in awe. The entire day was full of surprises, and they deeply felt the powerful aerospace forces of the land beneath their feet.

In the evening, they were taken to the local airport, where a C919 was on standby. It would first take the delegates to Weinan City, then transfer by car to Huayin City to sightsee and relax for a few days, and prepare to attend the multi-nation aerospace cooperation and space development, asteroid defense issues planning meeting convened there, to sign a joint treaty.

Huayin City is an important birthplace of the Yangshao culture, established during the Spring and Autumn period and made into a county during the Warring States period, with over 2300 years of history.

The area is most famous for Mount Hua, one of China’s Five Great Mountains, with its unique scenery and long history, it was determined to be the best meeting venue after evaluation.

The schedule for the meeting was planned from July 1st to July 20th: the Dawn III would head to the Moon at the start, and by the end, it would almost coincide with the astronauts’ return home, which was perfect.

The purpose of the meeting was to provide a clear framework and task allocation for future space cooperation among participating nations and to jointly undertake the need for space asteroid defense.

As per the convention of naming treaties after the location of the conference, the final agreement is expected to be called the "Huayin Multi-Nation Space Cooperation and Joint Defense Agreement," abbreviated as HAFO in English.

...

Florida, Kennedy Space Center.

Central Time in America on June 28th at 4:44 a.m., Beijing time on June 28th at 5:44 p.m.

Time remaining until the launch of CZ-10: 65 hours 16 minutes.

Ever since the SLS was transported over the sea to Cape Canaveral, the lights have never been turned off, with a ceaseless influx of engineers from Lockheed Martin and Boeing’s major factories rushing in to join the myriad of heads surrounding the SLS launch platform.

After tireless efforts, the comprehensive electrical system inspection and the checking of various connectors on the SLS rocket have been completed.

Despite the extreme haste, all inspection items were thoroughly completed without exception, revealing only a few equipment defects and single-digit installation errors in the electrical system, which have now all been rectified.

The intense white light shone on the SLS’s body, and the reflected light from the smooth outer surface of the SRB gave Claire Borden the chance to finally rub her sore and swollen eyes.

Engineers wearing white hats were constantly passing by her, hurrying and seldom pausing in one place, from the initial noise and clamor, now only the sounds of machinery and pencil on paper remained.

Even with shift work, the average rest time here was hardly over four hours. The launch center had bought out all the coffee from nearby beverage stores, and every once in a while, forklifts would offload crates of coffee delivered by trucks, to be emptied by people in less than an hour.

Deputy Director Jim Frey took a cup from the thermal container, flipped the lid, and drank it all in one go. Then, he crushed the empty cup and tossed it aside, adding to the pile of discarded cups.

The warm coffee revived his spirit. He flipped through the inspection checklist he had just reviewed and indeed spotted a mistake. He rushed towards the troubled workstation.

Claire leaned on the railing more than 60 meters in the air and calmly watched the engineers, who resembled ants clustering around sugar, while a number—30—popped into her mind.

If no defects are found in the recheck two hours from now, they can begin fueling the rocket and enter the launch preparation phase.

Taking into account the most basic redundancy adjustment time, they should be ready to launch in 40 hours.

That would be 9:44 am on June 30, Capital time; 8:44 pm American time, a whole 55 hours ahead of CZ-10’s publicly announced launch time. But from the American public’s perspective, it’d definitely be a day ahead of CZ-10.

In the event that everything went smoothly without any accidents, being nearly a day ahead was already the best possible outcome.

The Presidential Palace would call every three hours to check on the progress; now, at last, there was some good news to report.

Among everyone involved with Artemis-2, only the four astronauts were required to take mandatory rest. Yet, even though Claire was extremely sleepy, she had no desire to sleep at the moment.

She still had to remotely command the "Blue Moon" lander and the in-orbit refueling module to dock. According to reports from Houston, the former had just entered a 400-kilometer lunar orbit and would dock for refueling before maneuvering to the "Gateway" space station to wait for the astronauts’ arrival.

Of course, she was also aware that at this time, there should be two other spacecraft preparing to dock in lunar orbit; those were two parts of "U-Tu," one of which had a very peculiar purpose, claimed to be a fuel storage and refueling module. Since it was launched using the New Yuan-2 rocket, it should weigh around 20 tons.

However, that module’s volume wasn’t much less than the 50-ton manned habitat, so its empty weight must be at least twelve or thirteen tons. Would sending over that little fuel even be worthwhile?

Were they perhaps planning to transport more fuel later? But that wouldn’t be cost-effective, and he couldn’t fathom the necessity for it, completely lacking any rationale.

Ever since the Dawn project began, China’s aerospace had become more and more peculiar.