Chapter 457 - 448: Service Module_1

"Boeing believes that as long as the C822, C832, and C810 conform to the international civil aviation flight safety standards, they can completely apply for the airworthiness certificate from ICAO,"

"it’s just that we think their price advantage is not significant, and some minor tweaks can be made."

At the negotiation site in Capital, Zeng Xiangdong, the current president and chief engineer of Commercial Aviation, was somewhat surprised.

He had previously worked as a senior engineer at Airbus, then went to Hua Aviation Industry before eventually becoming the president of Commercial Aviation, and he was presently busy with the construction work of the Yizhou production base.

And the one negotiating directly with him was the current vice president of Boeing, Shepard Hill, who was just pushing the Boeing 787 in China. He had just met with McMaster yesterday, and his response today took Zeng Xiangdong by surprise.

Honestly, Commercial Aviation had always focused most on the C822. As it struggled to reach international markets, the regional jet was the main market; the C832, not designed for trans-oceanic routes, had a limited demand, and as a freighter, it couldn’t compete with older passenger aircraft.

Boeing didn’t oppose it? There had to be a catch.

So, he interlaced his fingers and tentatively asked,

"We have always admired your company’s great achievements in civil aviation passenger transportation. May I ask if you have any good suggestions?"

Shepard: "In my view, your pursuit of complete national production is a very low cost-effective method. And when applying for the airworthiness certificate, each subsystem has to undergo a lot of testing. If some of the components are replaced with qualified international suppliers, the time for the application will be greatly shortened."

"Of course, we have such plans. As long as the quality is up to standard, we will choose the supplier with better cost-effectiveness,"

Shepard: "If you are willing to outsource the engines, avionics, navigation systems, and airframes, these two types of airliners could immediately be put into operation on routes."

"..."

Zeng Xiangdong knew that capitalists never farted anything good; if all the key parts were outsourced, Commercial Aviation would be just like the C919, earning mere hard wages with all the investment and effort put into R&D gone in vain.

This relaxation of conditions was worse than giving none at all.

Suppressing the urge to erupt, Zeng Xiangdong calmly stated,

"For the C822, we can open up the landing gear hydraulic system, parts of the wing and airframe, interior, and APU. The C832 will be slightly less open. Besides avionics and engines, other subsystems can be outsourced to international suppliers if they offer competitive prices."

This was his instructed bottom line. If the C822 and C832 could be exported without restrictions, the production would skyrocket. It was entirely feasible to find several suppliers, both foreign and domestic, to provide components, as long as key technologies remained in their hands, profits would not be affected, nor would they face restrictive risks.

The most valuable were, of course, the main body, avionics, and engines. Outside these three major parts, other technologies were not inferior domestically, and there were substitutes.

Shepard Hill, of course, could not accept such an outcome, so he spread his hands,

"Mr. Zeng, I am not just representing Boeing at the moment. A single airliner directly sustains several giants and hundreds of enterprises, and what you have mentioned is not enough to convince the majority.

We are willing to make some concessions, but not too many."

Taking a deep breath, Zeng Xiangdong knew that reaching an agreement was going to be somewhat difficult.

...

"The domestically produced supersonic jet C810 and the large transport aircraft An-1250 obtain the FAA airworthiness certificate."

On July 7th, America finally made the first concession—though it was also tiny.

The C810, a small business jet, had only so many orders, and it was explicitly stated that it could only be used for civil aviation purposes. Although some wealthy individuals immediately expressed their desire to order, the total was still very limited.

The issuance of the airworthiness certificate for the C810 was more about Lockheed’s desire to develop the supersonic jet market. In an era of continuously rising world oil prices, if quite a few wealthy individuals were still willing to pay, it wouldn’t be bad for them to get involved.

As for the An-1250, it was even simpler. This type of super transporter had very few demands in global civil aviation, and it wouldn’t affect the current mainstream cargo business.

As for other progress, only international humanitarian organizations were in deep negotiations, and allowing TSMC to sell two mature 28nm production lines to the mainland was their greatest concession.

This greatly dissatisfied Lin Ju. The airworthiness certificates for the crucial C822 and C832 faced varying degrees of resistance from many countries in Europe and America; after all, the civil aviation industry was already showing signs of shrinkage due to the oil market, and introducing another big player would harm the interests of the old players.

But outsourcing key parts was not an option either; they had domestically produced them exactly to avoid critical technology being under foreign control, leading to a deadlock for the time being.

As for satellites... the Aerospace Development Committee mentioned that NACA was willing to persuade Congress to repeal parts of the Wolf Amendment, allowing for a slight opening.

"These Yankees, really unwilling to take the slightest loss,"

Academician She summarized the current situation very succinctly, with Lin Ju nodding in strong agreement.

"If worse comes to worst, we’ll just hold their astronauts and not let them return, only releasing them for a ransom."

"Ha, you can’t let anyone hear you say that."

Although he knew it was a joke, Academician She was still somewhat vigilant. Fortunately, they were now at the New Yuan base.

Nothing should go wrong with the return of Dawn III, which followed the path of the Apollo program; the astronauts didn’t need to do anything but wait.

Furthermore, this landing of the spacecraft was quite special, employing a splashdown recovery method at sea. In the South Sea, a carrier battle group had already assembled, patrolling around to practice search and rescue and recovery procedures.

At the moment, the navy did not have any commissioned helicopter assault ship; otherwise, the process would be even more convenient.

Others were in charge of the follow-up work, while Academician She followed Lin Ju to the base to inspect the two service modules of the Forward Space Station soon to be delivered.

According to the previous agreement, the main body of the service modules and most of the cabin equipment were manufactured by the space agency. They were also using this opportunity to finally nail down the technology for producing large cabin segments.

After their production, they were airlifted to the base to be fitted with nuclear engines and the remaining equipment.

The Jingu base, which manufactured the rockets, was officially accepted as up to par a few days ago. After a thorough inspection, they took over.

Outside the assembly plant, two trucks bearing large radiation symbols were each towing a heavy container; inside were two custom-improved A100 engines.

Unlike on the space shuttle where mass and volume need to be minimized, the service modules offered much more space, allowing many compromises made for spatial constraints to be altered.

The thrust data for the A100s equipped for the service modules remained unchanged, but the power generation was significantly enhanced. A single unit was capable of continuously delivering 2.5MW of electricity. In total, the six service modules could provide the space station with a plentiful 15MW of power.

Even without solar panels, the electricity provided by these reactors was more than sufficient for the needs of the space station and could support a considerable number of devices.

Of course, this also meant the cost of construction was exorbitantly high. At least Academician She believed that the price of each engine being equivalent to two service modules was completely reasonable, even feeling that Lin Ju had made a loss.