Chapter 719 - 695: Chengdian Number One

June 7, Qiongzhou, Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Center.

At noon, the busiest No. 1 work position witnessed a New Yuan No. 3 rocket ascending into the sky with a long flame trailing behind it.

Standing several kilometers away from the launch site, Ding Biyun looked up and watched the rocket until it disappeared into the horizon.

"Mr. Ding, Mr. Ding!"

Xiong Cheng ran over, shouting loudly. His white shirt was soaked with sweat, which made him, along with his dark skin and safety helmet, look like a construction worker on the job.

"Mr. Ding, it’s time for the group photo, hurry over."

"Alright, alright."

Ding Biyun still held his gaze towards the sky, as if worried that the rocket might suddenly fall back down.

By the time Xiong Cheng pulled him over to the podium, Ding was immediately surrounded and adorned with a big red flower, squeezed into the center for the group photo.

It wasn’t just the aerospace people; officials from Rong City and the Shuchuan Government were present, along with personnel from several solar energy companies, environmental bureaus, and the national power grid—a veritable hodgepodge.

And behind them, a similarly bedecked banner read:

"Warmly celebrate the successful launch of the main frame of the ’Chengdian No.1’ space power station"

Chengdian No.1, the official name of the space station proposed by a certain committee in Rong City, had finally commenced construction today after nearly two years of relentless effort.

The entire space station plan utilized 1,700 K2 solar panels, covering a total area of 357,500 square meters, with a power generation area of 348,500 square meters. It had a maximum power output of 174.25 megawatts and an average power generation capacity of 168 megawatts. The power generation section alone weighed 973 tons, with the total weight estimated to be 1,120 tons.

The recently launched object was the main frame of Chengdian No.1, providing a platform for the solar panels to attach and boasting two massive microwave antennas used for transmission and reception.

Both of these super-antennas were designed to fold, with a maximum transmission power of 180 megawatts and a maximum reception power of 100 megawatts.

Once the specialized, semi-enclosed giant parabolic receiver in Rong City was completed, the ground could receive between 155 and 160 megawatts of power.

The receiving antenna would not yet be used; it was prepared for network formation in space when a large number of space power stations would operate in the future.

The main frame of Chengdian No.1 weighed 147 tons. The frame alone weighed 90 tons, with the antennas contributing around 40 tons, and the remaining 10-plus tons consisting entirely of densely packed heat dissipation plates.

After all, we’re talking about an input of around 170 megawatts of power. Even with a microwave conversion efficiency higher than 99%, the wasted part would still generate tremendous heat. The only solution was to aggressively install heat dissipation plates, covering the entire body of the microwave antennas.

According to New Yuan’s plan, Chengdian No.1 would require a total of six launches. Four New Yuan No. 3 rockets would transport over 900 tons of solar panels. Then, the Storm and the soon-to-be-launched Great Wall One would undertake in-orbit assembly tasks.

To produce the specialized solar panels, New Yuan, the Aerospace Bureau, Rong City Government, and the largest domestic photovoltaic enterprise worked together to establish Huaxin Space Energy Company. With such a massive order, the price of K2 panels was successfully reduced from 260,000 RMB per square meter to an astonishing 9,100 RMB, with the total order amounting to 3.2 billion RMB.

Construction costs for the main frame amounted to 2.5 billion RMB. The seven launch missions and their associated tasks were quoted at 15.5 billion RMB. Without accounting for preliminary verification experiments, Chengdian No.1 cost 21.2 billion RMB, exceeding the initial rough estimate of 20 billion RMB by 6%.

Of course, the actual expenses included the launches and tests of Red Crow No.1 to Chiwu No.3, the construction of the ground receiver, power grid modifications, personnel, and various other costs, which nearly reached the 30 billion RMB mark from scratch for the full deployment of Chengdian No.1.

Fortunately, the Solar Day Project received strong attention from higher-ups. The ground construction was partially resolved by the Rong City Government, reducing the real expenditure to around 26 billion RMB. Of that, 11 billion RMB was subsidized by central finance, with the actual local contribution being merely 15 billion RMB.

The subsidy for the space station project was not a loss at all; the Perpetual Day project even gave rise to a series of important technologies, of which power generation was only a small part.

If all goes well, Chengdian No.1 will be assembled in low Earth orbit by December, then actively ascend to geostationary orbit, and begin to provide clean electric power to the ground after March 2019.

"Professor Ding, you are our great hero!"

"Professor Ding, a single project has kept us busy for half a year; thank you!"

"Thank you, Professor Ding, for your contributions to environmental protection and the promotion of clean energy!"

"Ding..."

A stream of congratulatory words almost drowned Ding Biyun, and he barely waited for them to finish before it was his turn for a solo speech segment, but it wasn’t over yet. In the last period of time, there was a media conference, and the eager journalists had already grown impatient.

The bustling scene made him, who had spent a year in the Qinling mountains, quite uncomfortable, struggling to respond to each approaching microphone, carefully recalling the speech he had prepared earlier.

But once the arranged journalists were satisfied, other invited media, especially foreign media, were not so easy to dismiss.

"Professor Ding, is Chengdian No.1 some kind of secret weapon?"

Ding Biyun looked toward the source of the discordant voice and, spotting the NHK logo, directly skipped over it.

"Professor Ding, how do you respond to the Pentagon’s accusation that microwaves could cause severe harm to humans?"

"Any excessive electromagnetic waves can harm living creatures, so we chose uninhabited areas for our receiving antennas and manage them strictly."

This question Ding Biyun dared not treat lightly, as indeed, the high-energy and dense microwaves of Chengdian No.1 were frightening, and no people could be present when its receiving antennas were operating.

"Can you explain the Qinling species extinction event caused by Chiwu No. 3? There is information that villagers from several villages were forced to relocate because they couldn’t withstand the microwaves."

"Those are false reports; you already asked that question. The journalist from Bloomberg, please go ahead, and I hope you won’t repeat the rumour that Chengdian No.1 is a secret weapon; there are no secret weapons in space."

"Haha..." The journalist was a middle-aged Caucasian with a humorous appearance, and he did not seem to have such strong aggressiveness.

"Professor Ding, NACA is also undertaking a similar artificial sun project; what is your view of your colleagues’ work?"

Of course, Ding Biyun remembered the "John Sun," that enormous mirror that NACA was indeed seriously working on. He had always been concentrated on the Perpetual Day project and didn’t know much about the other project, but that didn’t prevent him from saying a few kind words.

"I admire their creativity and imagination; it truly is a grand concept. I think it, like space power generation, will bring great help to environmental protection and energy revolution."

However, this was not what the middle-aged journalist wanted to hear, and he continued to ask:

"Some say this mirror could be blown away by the sun; what do you think?"

"Er... in a sense, it really is a super-large sail, and aside from illuminating the Earth, NACA could also use it to propel probes or ships toward Mars."

Ding Biyun did not give a direct answer. In fact, this issue was quite serious; the "artificial sun" in Rong City had to frequently adjust its orbit to counteract the displacement caused by solar pressure—it was an annoying problem, to say the least.