Chapter 582 - 570: Accident

The launch of CZ-18 was not precisely timed to the publicly announced 6 o’clock, but happened about 4 minutes early, yet almost no one missed the live event.

Unlike land-based rocket launches, the activity before CZ-18’s launch was too great to go unnoticed.

Lin Ju hadn’t taken his eyes off Launch Box B Zone since the start of flooding; the furious pumping of water caused a sudden drop in the water level around the launch box and the resulting currents whipped up odd tides.

Of course, all this was seen through the video feed from buoys outside the launch area. After the currents sped up for two to three minutes, a huge white cylinder slowly emerged from the mouth of the launch box.

At that moment there was almost no sound in the video, but just 6 seconds later, Lin Ju could feel the "thump, thump" of dull thuds coming from below the 17,000-ton hull of the Yuanwang No. 7, like the tail of a whale slapping the surface of the water, a sound first traveling through the water.

Suddenly, an astonishing amount of mist, alongside the rocket, burst crazily from the launch box mouth, all of which was water vapor that had been superheated by the engines, gathering in the enclosed space and forcibly pushing upwards, further accelerating the rise of the rocket.

Over the next approximately 10 seconds, the water vapor accelerated upwards; then, at a certain height, it plummeted in all directions, creating a beautiful, small mushroom cloud.

But this did not conceal the towering figure of CZ-18, over 200 meters tall, with Jiuzhang Spaceship at the top effortlessly breaking through the mushroom cloud to appear in the sky, also indicating that the bottom of the rocket had almost left the surface of the water.

The four solid rocket boosters, each generating over 2,800 tons of thrust, sent blinding light shooting out in all directions where the sea met the air, replacing the sun as the dawn of Qiongzhou in the early morning.

Also on the observation edge of the 022 craft, Yu Ziming’s mouth hung open, completely unsure whether it was an explosion or a normal launch.

The relentless 22,000-ton thrust hammered the ocean’s surface, vaporizing more water into the air and creating a column of vapor hundreds of times larger than before, that extended upward for tens of kilometers even from ten kilometers away, as if reaching for the sky.

The ascent speed of the small sun, composed of 39 liquid hydrogen-liquid oxygen engines and 4 solid rocket engines, was nearly three times that of conventional rockets; in just a few moments, it had fully emerged and lit up the skylight for miles around.

And now, almost 30 seconds after the launch, Yu Ziming saw the water, already stirring with dense ripples, and suddenly realized what was about to happen. He opened his mouth wide and pressed his palms hard against his ears.

But it was too late. The gale bearing the sound of thunderous explosions hit him head-on. Despite leaning against the hull, Yu Ziming still felt the air scraping across his skin as it rushed into his mouth and even choked his breathing, coupled with the sound of numerous large-caliber cannons firing beside his ears.

This sensation was all too familiar. It was not long after he had left his unit when he got lost with an assault team near the firing range during an exercise and arrived just as a battalion’s 155mm howitzer battery opened fire.

Unprepared and less than a hundred meters from the firing position, the first thunderous blast rendered him deaf. It took a week for Yu Ziming’s hearing to slowly come back, and the ringing in his ears took a month to completely disappear.

The current situation was similar. The several-hundred-ton missile boat was also trembling violently, resonating with the 43 rocket engines ten kilometers away.

While he battled with the air shockwave, the distant sun had already flown above the clouds, and the path of the four solid rocket boosters left behind a smoke column several tens of meters in diameter, illuminated by their burning tails. It looked like a twisting, flashing golden dragon, piercing the skylight and rushing toward the highest point.

...

But inside the command center, people had just experienced the most thrilling minute.

"East Wind, optical and telemetry signals normal."

"Yuanwang Four, height measurement 26 kilometers, ascent rate abnormal."

"Yuanwang Seven, height measurement 27 kilometers, ascent rate abnormal."

"Throttle valve self-adjusting, Core Stage One throttling to 65%!"

"Throttle back 75%, start turning correction!"

"Throttle back 85%, turning correction complete!"

Series of announcements came one after another without almost any delay, and Academician She immediately felt dizzy. He only knew that something was not going according to plan, and that there had been an accident with the rocket.

But the signal wasn’t lost, and the ground tracking screen didn’t show the massive rocket suddenly exploding. It continued to ascend steadily and had already started to accelerate along the direction of Earth’s rotation.

When he collected himself, Xie Liaofu was already standing next to him at some point, sternly watching the stream of information flickering on the large screen.

Those were data sent back by the rocket flight computer; in his opinion, this data was far more useful than manual announcements.

"A minor issue."

His voice was devoid of any emotional fluctuation, yet it greatly relieved Academician She, enabling him to calmly examine the anomaly logs that had been recorded.

The recent alerts were all pointing to one thing: the ascent velocity was too high, nearly 20% higher than expected.

But it wasn’t because an engine had malfunctioned; the rocket flight computer completed the error check in just one second and then decisively reduced the thrust.

Due to the different initial velocities, the flight computer adjusted the engine throttling range to keep the flight trajectory unchanged. According to the results sent back, the adjustment would likely leave an additional 2% of fuel at separation for the core stage one—that was roughly 120 tons of fuel. So, there definitely had been a problem.

"Launch box, we underestimated the additional thrust during launch," said Xie Liaofu, who had already thought of the reason and explained in a low voice:

"The rocket already gains extra thrust from the accumulation of gases when launching from within it, and the vaporized seawater also provides thrust. The effect of buoyancy is also a bit faster than imagined. Our current computers struggle to simulate such complex computational fluid dynamics problems. That’s why the pre-launch simulation wasn’t accurate.

However, I believe flight control can adjust for it. This excess fuel is enough for the core stage one to work an extra five seconds after booster separation, which can send several more tons of payload up."

"It should be so. It must be so."

Academician She nodded his head, aware that fluid calculations rely heavily on experience, and expecting some errors.

Yet, he now felt more keenly his own sluggishness, which might be due to several days of relentless work, or it might just be because of his age; his response time was not befitting a qualified commander.

In contrast, Xie Liaofu’s unexpected calm was surprising, which was a good thing.

People like him should come to the space agency—his managerial capabilities in engineering displayed these past few days were on par with Sir Qian’s. He should be leading a large collective forward.

Xie Liaofu was unaware of Academician She’s thoughts, still seriously monitoring the flight status of the rocket; with its high initial velocity, the CZ-18 entered space much faster than typical small rockets.

seconds after launch, the four solid-fuel rocket boosters separated at an altitude of 65 kilometers;

seconds after launch, core stage one shut down its 39 engines and began falling from an altitude of 95 kilometers after separation.

The remaining second stage was taking the Jiuzhang Spaceship directly towards the Moon at full force, without the need to circle the low Earth orbit for acceleration.