Chapter 649 - 633 Typhoon

"Warmly Celebrate the Successful Completion Ceremony of the Skylight III Moon Mission"

On January 27th, "Cloud Ascend" landed at a military airport in Baofu, delivering the last five payload specialists of the Skylight III mission back to Earth.

Over half a month ago, this airport had completed its final modifications. It had acquired the capability to provide simple maintenance and upkeep to aero-space planes, enabling them to be relaunched, allowing for a crewed return spacecraft to land so close to the capital for the first time.

It’s just a pity that the capital’s airports are all too busy, while airspace management is strict; otherwise, landing directly in the capital would have brought even more prestige.

The celebration ceremony this time was even held at the Union Mining Headquarters, attended by all major dignitaries, including the leading figures of the Aerospace Development Committee.

The nine payload specialists were praised and gave brief speeches on the platform, but since this was the first major lunar mission organized by a "private enterprise," the whole ceremony was solemn and lengthy. Lin Ju hid in the least conspicuous corner early on, evading the cameras’ capture.

He was now frowning at his phone, his face full of confusion.

Yesterday, the Shanghai Stock Index opened at 3075, closed at 3044, with the lowest dip at 3011, narrowly hovering around the 3000-point threshold once again.

Though he didn’t pay much attention to the stock market, he vaguely remembered that the situation at the beginning of 2018 wasn’t this bad. Could it be due to the significant drop in export volume since July?

In such circumstances, there were still voices advocating for United Mining to go public on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, this...

Even he couldn’t think of a way to salvage the big A; he could only silently turn off his phone and sigh as he continued to sit through the event.

"What’s the matter, worrying about Jupiter’s issues?"

Academician She’s voice sounded beside him. She had just finished giving a speech and came down to find a seat when she noticed Lin Ju sighing.

"No, I was wondering when I could make a fortune from a surge in the big A."

"..."

Academician She pretended not to hear and forcibly changed the subject:

"I just met with people from the Astronomical Association backstage. There’s good news and bad news, which would you like to hear first?"

Without even lifting his head, Lin Ju said:

"Let’s start with the bad news."

"Your business has been disrupted, NACA intervened, causing IAU to find excuses to abandon the plan to launch its own probes with self-raised funds. They were willing to sponsor a substantial amount of money, and also using nuclear engines, at least it was close to a billion-dollar deal, but now it’s completely gone.

However, there is good news. Although the International Astronomical Association’s deal is gone, our own Astronomical Association has proposed a deep space probe plan, and you can start working on it now, just that there aren’t a billion US dollars, only a billion RMB available immediately."

The hiccups in the IAU’s plan didn’t surprise Lin Ju, as he had been extremely skeptical of the plan from the start. On the other hand, he was quite impressed that their own Astronomical Association could put together 1 billion RMB; the status and organizational power of the two associations were completely different.

As if knowing what Lin Ju was thinking, Academician She explained:

"There are opinions from above suggesting that we are far too behind in deep space exploration, and many projects are led by the space agency, demanding to increase the influence of academic institutions... you understand, right?"

After some expressive glances, Lin Ju finally understood that the contribution from the Astronomical Association was merely nominal. And it was clear from Academician She’s intent; although the 1 billion wasn’t sufficient for the entire probe plan, it was enough to get New Yuan’s emergency projects started.

This kind gesture was not insignificant, and it might also be because Academician She was wary of him producing something scary to trade for funds.

"We will do our best... the New Yuan Project will launch a probe in May, which will fly by Jupiter and Saturn in succession and survey their main moons."

"So soon?!"

Academician She was shocked to hear such astounding news; there were only three months left!

"Our plan is to use a platform similar to Departing Fire, with a similar structure and detection capabilities, just optimized a bit, without a specific design. It will have an additional sub-probe capable of entering the atmosphere. If propelled by nuclear engines, maybe it could reach the destination within a year.

However, the main goal this time is to test the new aero-space plane. We will use Typhoon, the sister ship of Storm, to complete the mission, testing the ultra-long-range reliability of the nuclear-powered platform."

Lin Ju’s next words were even more surprising but made Academician She more accepting of the one-year journey.

The most expensive part of the base’s initial Titan probe plan was propulsion; nuclear engines are really expensive, and the cost of the special modifications was burning hot to the touch.

Even if the substantial financial reward from the System was credited, it couldn’t be overlooked, and the engineers finally had an idea: convert the second H2N, using the Typhoon as an ultra-long-range interstellar transport platform, carrying a large amount of fuel and probes to complete the mission.

The biggest advantage of this plan was that it didn’t require a new platform to be built, and Typhoon could increase its total mass to nearly 300 tons for the journey to Saturn. Even with enough fuel reserved for the return trip, it could carry up to 80 tons of payload and provide an unimaginably ample power supply, although doing so would inevitably mean attaching the payload externally or using external fuel tanks.

The three nuclear engines of Typhoon also provided high reliability. With the control system’s blessing, as long as one could function normally, it would be enough to ensure the mission went smoothly.

There was also a hidden advantage in the aero-space plane’s inherent characteristics. According to initial calculations by the engineers, for moons like Jupiter II and Titan, which have atmospheres, Typhoon had the feasibility to enter the atmosphere for surveying flights. Moreover, its nuclear engines could still maintain partial operation there, capable of hovering for a prolonged period.

Especially since Titan has an atmosphere denser than Earth’s, but with much weaker gravity, providing ideal conditions for the aircraft.

Although originally Typhoon was designed to serve the Earth-Mars route, embarking on a mission to Saturn wouldn’t have much impact. Its powerful payload capabilities could still support carrying certain Mars exploration payloads.

Testing the long-term maintenance-free reliability of the nuclear engines was indeed necessary; if successful, it would also inject more confidence in the future deep space flights of March.

Academician She silently listened to all these explanations. Although logical and articulate, she still felt something was off.

But she had no reason to object. New Yuan’s plans were known for their rigorous standards. If they had been announced, they had already passed feasibility checks.

Moreover, the deep space exploration team had just been established. If they could implement a rather large plan right away, it would enhance their credibility, at least not a bad thing.

Still, the use of an aero-space plane on alien worlds... was indeed a bold idea, one she herself could not have conceived.

"We should discuss this when there’s time... And there’s one more thing, March should start rotating at some time; the title of the first space-based artificial gravity device is about to be taken."