Chapter 583 - 571 Organizational Issues

In the reception area of the Wenchang Command Center, the shaking of the camera footage from the second stage tail of the CZ-18 rocket stopped.

Immediately after, the screen switched to a simulation animation, showing a curved dashed line connecting the combined body of Chapter 9 and the second-stage rocket with the Moon, indicating it had successfully entered the Earth-Moon transfer orbit.

At this time, just over ten minutes had passed since the launch, which was nearly twice as fast as previous lunar probes.

Claire knew why, the thrust-to-weight ratio of the CZ-18 had been announced to be as high as 1.4, and at takeoff, it could gain acceleration through buoyancy and compressed gas, he estimated that the maximum thrust-to-weight ratio obtained at launch could even exceed 3.

This not only greatly reduced the fuel consumption during the takeoff stage but also allowed the rocket to dispense with the longest stage of first-level acceleration, with ample fuel available for non-stop acceleration, reaching the second cosmic speed without needing to accelerate around the near-Earth orbit. The second-stage rocket only needed 65 hours to deliver the spacecraft to the Moon.

However, as an industry insider, what shook him the most was not the waves stirred up by the rocket at takeoff or the cloud trail reaching for the sky, but the amazing strength and fuel storage technology of the CZ-18 rocket body.

Such a heavy super rocket had a thrust-to-weight ratio at takeoff that was even twice that of conventional rockets, and for at least 28 hours, he didn’t see any transport ships continuously refueling the rocket body, which meant that the CZ-18 rocket body and tank material had definitely achieved a huge breakthrough, at least a generation ahead.

Yet such revolutionary technological achievements were not being heavily advertised, which was even more disconcerting.

The process of the rocket launch didn’t excite him, instead, he felt a chill throughout his body.

Claire turned his gaze toward Borisov, who sat next to him in the VIP section, his face also somber, and Miklin—an influential person from RKA—also had a fluctuating gaze, uncertain of his thoughts.

But others didn’t have as many concerns; the representatives of the space agencies from Southeast and Central and Western Asia who were also present had already stood up and begun to applaud, celebrating the successful maiden voyage of the CZ-18.

Claire also clapped reflexively, revealing a highly professional smile.

...

"Right full rudder, March two!"

At the helm of Yuanwang Seven, Captain Zhang Zheng issued the order to navigate northward before turning to Lin Ju, who was observing from the side, and inviting him:

"Please come with me to the bridge, the observation is better from there."

Lin Ju followed him to the bridge and looked up at the sky, where the sun had just risen, to see a faintly discernible small white dot in the southern sky.

The four solid boosters of the CZ-18 had already fallen into the sea minutes before, with the drop zone in the Southern Sea Area of Luzon, a specialized salvage fleet had already started to move out.

New Yuan had no plans to recover solid boosters like NACA; retrieval was simply to prevent debris from being salvaged by others and leaking technology.

As for the core stage of the rocket, it chose to return on the same path, within the view of Yuanwang Seven, its trajectory was normal, and the error margin of the landing point would not exceed 100 meters.

Zhang Zheng first saw the braking flames of the four central engines of the CZ-18 when the roaring sound of the rocket engines reached the sea surface. At that moment, the white rocket body, which was 95 meters tall, 18 meters in diameter, and partly charred black on the surface, was less than 1000 meters high.

At this point, the first stage’s mass was only a few hundred tons, not even one-tenth of what it was at launch, continuously decelerating under the thousands of tons of thrust in a vertical position, and it looked as if the final landing point would be only about 3 kilometers from Yuanwang Seven.

Compared to the launch, it was actually much busier around that area now, with dozens of ships silently surrounding and watching the recovery process, unlike half an hour earlier when they had been deliberately spaced far apart.

Under the watchful eyes of tens of thousands, Core Stage One, now less than 10 meters above the sea level, completely shut down its engines and smashed heavily into the water in a free-fall attitude. Then, before it could bounce back, it activated the solid rocket motors for attitude adjustment at the top and quickly tipped over to one side.

The huge rocket body bobbed several times with the sea before slowly settling down, while the pressure relief ports on the side of the rocket body began to operate, releasing the fuel that had not yet been used up.

Lin Ju picked up the captain’s exclusive binoculars and carefully observed the rocket’s outer surface. After not finding any anomalies, he patiently waited for the fuel release to complete.

What was most feared in recovery was the last fall, where a nearly hundred-meter height could produce a tremendous lateral load. Although decelerated by solid rockets, it was still not guaranteed to be completely problem-free.

After splashdown, the first stage would be towed to Qiongzhou’s rocket transfer dock as planned and put into a dedicated mobile floating shipyard.

There, it would undergo an entire rocket body non-destructive testing process. Some small structural defects could be repaired, and upon evaluation, if it was still considered reusable, it would wait for maintenance for the next mission.

However, Xie Liaofu had mentioned to him yesterday the extremely complex launch preparation process of CZ-18, then stated that the cost of building the rocket accounted for only one-third of the total launch costs, another third was for the manufacture and transportation of fuel, and the last third was for everything else.

Since the expensive solid rocket boosters and second-stage rockets are not reused, the benefits of recovering the first stage are far from as substantial as those of other rockets.

If not for the laborious and site-intensive remanufacturing, actually, not recovering might even be less of a worry...

"Why is no one going to retrieve it?"

Just as Lin Ju had put down the binoculars, he heard Zhang Zheng’s puzzled question and explained with a smile:

"Although you can’t see the white smoke now, there are still a lot of residual gases inside the fuel tanks. There is a chemical reaction system stored inside the rocket that will produce nitrogen gas to slowly expel those residual gases.

It will take about half an hour to flush them out completely. Reckless towing would be risky."

"I see, this is a liquid oxygen-liquid hydrogen rocket, it’s very prone to explosion, isn’t it?"

"Exactly."

Zhang Zheng appeared enlightened and then exclaimed:

"The size of this core stage, if converted into a warship, would probably be three to four thousand tons. I’ve just witnessed the equivalent of a frigate descending intact from space, and it’s incredible."

"Yet such a massive rocket can only send 800 tons to space, not even meeting the threshold of a ’ship,’ just a ’boat.’ Human spaceflight technology is still in its early stages; overcoming gravity requires paying such a high price."

Zhang Zheng was surprised by Lin Ju’s words but nodded in agreement:

"That sounds somewhat pessimistic... but it seems to be the case. The March space station is so large and only has 50 crew members, and the total number of people who have been to space worldwide doesn’t even reach a thousand."

Lin Ju: "So even if all of humanity were to form a Space Force, the total force would at most be equivalent to three battalions. The ordinary soldiers of the Space Force would have to at least hold the rank of major, or else even for the supreme commander, giving out the rank of lieutenant colonel would be difficult."

Zhang Zheng: "..."

"However, I have a premonition that the Space Force shouldn’t be too far away from us."