Chapter 427 - 418 A Moon_1

"Dawn, please confirm the fairing door is closed."

"Understood, Dawn!"

Zhang Zhiguang responded over the radio, then turned to give Fang Lin a look.

The latter was still watching the Moon in the sky through the camera on the exterior of the fairing, but upon hearing the directive, he immediately operated the controls to close the fairing door.

The command module of the Dawn spaceship had a 25cm diameter reinforced glass window designed to withstand the ablation of re-entering Earth’s atmosphere, but for added safety, an additional protective shield capable of manual or electric opening and closing was fitted.

He could have directly seen the sky outside, but the Moon mission required the fairing, which did not have large glass areas.

Zhang Zhiguang had already completed the joint self-check of the ship-arrow and was calmly staring at the parameters, waiting for the launch command.

Now, there were 15 minutes remaining until the launch.

The gantry connected to the entrance of the fairing disconnected and under the action of the hydraulic mechanism, retracted to the side, while the door on the fairing slowly closed.

The three astronauts tightened their legs slightly and made minor adjustments to their postures to better fit their backs to the seats.

Although the electric seats of the Dawn spaceship were supplied by the same manufacturer, they felt that they were not as comfortable as those on the space shuttle, lacking that enveloping sense of unity.

Inside the launch center, Lin Ju was confirming that Unity at the Xinyuan Launch Site was also in good condition, maintaining a rapid refueling state for launch within 6 hours.

The Apollo spacecraft did not have a rescue backup, but the Dawn spacecraft did.

Progress and Firmness were still atop the Tiangong Space Station, and only Unity was on the ground, now mounted on a New Yuan-2 rocket. Some seats and other equipment had been removed from the cabin to reduce weight—the 19-ton empty weight could be taken to the lunar orbit by the lifting capacity of the New Yuan-2 rocket.

This was the only space shuttle available for use at the moment. Storm was undergoing maintenance at the base; the nuclear-powered long-duration flight had revealed some minor issues, and the base needed to make slight modifications to finish by mid-July; Pioneer and Glory had returned on June 14th and 15th, respectively, and were also under maintenance, with all three H2s not ready for flight until after mid-July.

Fortunately, H1 was also sufficient. If things got too bad, at least there was one space shuttle that could be put to use, and together with the U-Tu Space Station, the emergency preparations were very comprehensive.

In contrast, Artemis II only had the Gateway to provide a temporary haven: 4 cubic meters, one cubic meter per person—a fair distribution.

At least, Lin Ju truly could not figure out the purpose of the "Gateway" space station, which was only 8 cubic meters even at full capacity, other than being quite roomy if converted into a restroom.

"One minute!"

The announcer’s voice startled him out of his thoughts, and his attention returned to the big screen.

The three astronauts had clenched their fists, their necks slightly tilted back against the solid headrests.

Although it wasn’t the first time embarking on a launch mission, Zhang Zhiguang now felt the voice in the radio progressively hollowing, his thoughts had already left his body, and his eyes were merely windows recording the scene, faithfully carrying out the parameter check that was nearly becoming muscle memory.

The two YF130 engines of the central core stage ignited first, with the throttle valve opening gently, but when the vibration transmitted up to the command module at 100 meters high, a strong tremor was still perceptible.

Four seconds later, the eight engines on the four boosters also ignited, and within 5 seconds, all 10 engines and 20 nozzles reached 100% operational status. With 25 tons of fuel lost every second from the various tanks, the rocket was provided with over 5100 tons of thrust, and the four supporting points at the bottom of the rocket began to disengage from the launch pad.

On a beach several kilometers away, the first thing people saw was the orange glow emerging from the gaps in the launch pad, followed by a silent spread of massive smoke that obscured the rocket and the launch position, until the pointed cone of the Escape Tower emerged above the smoke, and only then did those who felt the ground vibration hear the sound waves in the air.

Yamamoto Ikki was surrounded by more than a hundred Islanders, wildly waving bright red flags and shouting something that was completely drowned out by the surrounding noise, their voices nothing but a pantomime against the backdrop of the rocket’s roar.

The camera, once set to track its target, intelligently began to follow and shoot, but he still corrected it manually with great care. The contrast was being automatically reduced because the brightness of the combined flame from the 20 nozzles was too high—if the exposure wasn’t lowered, all that could be captured would be a bright white glare.

When he looked up, the Moon could barely be seen, its outline visible for the last time, looking almost as high as the rocket from his current angle.

"Long live China! *#@% long live!"

Celosia Tamafu’s voice finally reached his ears as the latter was jumping excitedly and shouting, waving the flag.

The Apollo program’s Moon landing had allowed NACA to stand tall in the world with a condescending attitude for half a century, and now, Yamamoto thought, their pride was about to end.

...

The sun was rising over Qiongzhou, while Florida was still descending into darkness.

Claire could no longer see the stars, obscured by the clouds, with only a faint yellow moonlight discernible behind them.

At 21:09, after he pulled down to refresh Twitter once again, the CADC finally posted an update:

"Dawn III launch successful"

The accompanying photo was a ground snapshot of the rocket overlapping the Moon’s silhouette, and upon zooming in, one could even see the insulation foam peeling off the rocket’s surface.

He hadn’t watched the live stream, and he blocked the news as quickly as possible. Most people in the control room were unaware of the early launch of Dawn III; they only knew that Director Claire had requested the launch be moved up 30 minutes, with the reason being "to prevent lightning from gathering clouds."

Though it was a bit rushed, it was still within the scope of adjustments and not difficult to achieve.

At 28 minutes and 20 seconds, the water deluge system began spraying on the core stage engines. The four RS25 engines swiveled slightly, finally confirming that the control was normal.

"ten, nine, eight, seven, six... four engine start."

The four liquid oxygen-hydrogen engines ignited, and four seconds later, the two SRBs were fired.

The crowd, anxious on the outskirts of the launch site for half an hour, saw the numbers on the giant timer and erupted into cheers.

The solid rocket boosters operated in a forceful manner, even louder than the more powerful liquid engines, and in the darkness, it felt like the whole earth trembled. The expanding orb of light at the launch pad seemed like a monster breaking free from the earth’s fissures, roaring to escape from gravity’s cage.

The two SRBs along with the core’s RS25s steadily pushed the rocket away from the launch pad. The trail left by the solid rocket boosters quickly merged into a column of smoke several meters wide, which glowed in the light of the flames, appearing as a slash purposely cut through the night sky, seemingly aiming to pierce the heavens, or it reminded one of the mythical Tower of Babel.

In the past 30 minutes, two rockets carrying Moon spacecraft had ascended from the Eastern and Western hemispheres, two tiny points of light emerging on both the lit and dark side of Earth, successively entering orbit.

They were planned to orbit the Earth two to three times for acceleration, then set off together on the journey to the Moon.

CBS quickly released the first report after the launch of Artemis-2, penned by Susanna, still in Qiongzhou:

"Two rockets, two skies, and the only moon"