Chapter 79 - 77 Out to War!_1

"Progress Commander: Deng Lei, your 141st full-status simulation landing score is: 92 points. Congratulations."

July 17th, just three days before the manned launch of the Progress spacecraft.

Deng Lei had finished his last training in the simulator and now only needed to adjust his mindset and wait for the launch of the space shuttle.

Emerging from the simulator, he was surprised to find Li Wei holding a bottle of Wuliangye with a smile, watching him.

"Congratulations, Commander Deng, there are only a few days left until Feitian. This is what I received when I came back from my mission. Call up Professor Zhou and Zhao, and along with Haisheng and myself, the five of us will drink this in your honor," said Li Wei.

"That’s too kind of you, Captain Li, I couldn’t possibly accept."

Deng Lei was taken aback with pleasure, but since Li Wei indicated he was too busy to watch the launch due to his upcoming trip to the Capital, Deng Lei eventually agreed.

The five of them gathered around a table, sipping drinks, with Li Wei and Haisheng leading the conversation, alternating between casual chat and sharing the intricacies and key points of their own space missions, which left the trio deeply moved.

After over two hours of drinking, the bottle was not yet empty, but everyone was in high spirits. Finally, Li Wei lifted his glass:

"A commander and two payload specialists, this is a significant milestone in our country’s space history. Let’s toast to the future astronauts!"

"Cheers!"

...

July 21st, 4 in the morning, Deng Lei, Zhou Rui, and Zhao Xiaowen got up and began having breakfast.

The breakfast was hearty, composed of easily digestible foods, and there was also a bottle of light wine.

Even though Qiongzhou was at the southernmost tip and the climate was warm, the trio still donned coats similar to those worn by security guards, savoring their breakfast in small bites.

Tasting just a little of each dish, they didn’t seek to fill up, only to remember the flavors.

After all, every rocket launch was filled with danger, and they had to be prepared for the worst.

Lin Ju and the four system engineers were sitting at the same table with them, not touching the food, only lifting their glasses which contained just a sip of wine at the end.

Before toasting, the three each took out their own letters of last will, and Lin Ju solemnly placed them in the inner pocket of his coat.

"Gentlemen, I hope that the first thing you do when you return is to ask me to give these back to you.

Fair winds, you are opening a new era for New Yuan Spaceflight," Lin said.

Androff: "I, along with Guo, was responsible for the design of H1, and I assure you, one day in the future, we too will be riding her into space, and that day won’t be far off."

Guo Shen: "I hope that in the future, every launch will be as routine as taking a commercial airliner."

All three simply nodded silently, drained the small amount of red wine, wiped their mouths, and walked towards the changing room.

At 5:10 AM, journalists gathered outside the gates of the New Yuan Spaceflight Qiongzhou Branch captured images of three astronauts about to embark on private spaceflight.

The crew, spanning three generations, emerged in their full onboard spacesuits, facemasks retracted and carrying small air conditioners.

Although the spacesuits they wore were much lighter than those used by the space agency, it was still easy to accumulate heat in Qiongzhou. The small cases they carried were portable air conditioners similar to the space agency’s, connected to their suits to maintain a comfortable body temperature without sweating.

New Yuan Spaceflight didn’t have an elaborate ceremony like the space agency; instead, the three took a commemorative photo under the giant logo of New Yuan Spaceflight before boarding a shuttle MPV that drove them to the launch site.

In the launch command center, they greeted each member of the control room staff before ascending the launch tower and moving through the corridor to enter into Progress’s crew cabin.

To ensure the astronauts’ heart rates remained stable, the farewell with their families had already taken place the day before, and today they only needed to focus on the launch mission itself.

The side hatch of Progress slid open, and Deng Lei led the way, climbing in with ease aided by support equipment, just as he had done countless times in practice. Then, with the help of the technicians, he secured himself in the pilot’s seat.

Zhao Xiaowen followed, taking the copilot’s seat, while Zhou Rui settled into a more spacious chair at the back, connecting his suit’s communications and life support lines to Progress.

On the morning of July 21 at 7:30, the hatch of Progress closed, with 90 minutes remaining until launch.

Deng Lei turned on the control panel and pressed a button.

"Command center, Commander Deng Lei requests to perform a self-check on the composite body."

"Permission granted for self-check, control computer authority for Progress has been bestowed, status: B9"

Deng Lei stared at the control panel in front of him and issued commands through his headset:

"02, 03, please check whether the spacesuit and life-support interface are in good condition, and ensure the safety belt buckles are fastened tightly."

"02 (03) understood!"

"..."

In the live broadcast, Deng Lei, adorned in a cool sci-fi space suit, swiftly and accurately toggled switches, checking attitude and the status of various subsystems, all while maintaining constant communication with the ground, a completely different realm compared to when astronauts used to wait idly during space agency launches.

After all, the spacecraft was almost entirely controlled from the ground, but the space shuttle afforded great autonomy, and the commander must be adept at operating it.

In the internal viewing area of the launch site, a crowd of students and teachers from the Southern Machinery Institute packed the place, all their attention fixed on the crew cabin.

Zhou Rui’s two students looked up at the screen with faces full of admiration, then proudly boasted to their classmates about their professor.

Zhou Rui’s colleagues and the school leadership felt nothing but envy, especially Tong Peiqiang, who had been eliminated due to bronchial pneumonia and was practically turning into a lemon.

There were others who felt even more sour than them, which were the members of the astronaut corps.

Some of them were in the same selection batch as Li Wei, yet until now, they hadn’t been to space. The trio from New Yuan went from training to launch in just over half a year, without any competition, and just waltzed into space with ease?

Meanwhile in the Capital, the leaders of the astronaut corps were urging the space administration to hasten their collaboration with New Yuan, almost to the point of camping at their superiors’ doorsteps.

Online and in front of televisions, the viewing audience had multiplied several times over from before.

Even on the scenic beaches of Qiongzhou, many were watching for the fourth time, cramming the beach to its limits. Qiongzhou continuously bolstered the police presence to patrol and maintain order, fearing any potential accidents.

At 8:30 in the morning, with 30 minutes left until launch, the space shuttle-rocket composite body completed its final self-check and entered the last launch sequence.

Zhao Xiaowen, seeing the view outside the front and side windows, couldn’t help but feel her heart rate speeding up. Deng Lei, right on cue, extended his right arm, making a "rest assured, I’m here" gesture.

It was still a bit of a reach for Deng Lei to touch the other person’s hand due to the spaciousness of the cabin of Progress; otherwise, he could have patted her shoulder for comfort.

"Countdown, 10 minutes."

Deng Lei closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and then slowly exhaled, his heart rate gradually stabilizing, almost a perfect sine wave.

In his eyes, there was anticipation and determination.

"Countdown, thirty seconds!"

"Ten, nine, eight..."

As the countdown reached zero, Deng Lei felt a tremor originating from the bottom of the rocket that held a terrifying power. Although it wasn’t intense, the force was enough to make one’s scalp tingle.

The frequency of vibrations increased, then suddenly the intensity dropped drastically, and pressure was suddenly felt all over the body.

Looking out of the side windows, the horizontal launch tower was retreating into the distance and quickly vanished from sight.

As fuel continued to burn, the rocket’s acceleration quickly rose, and the G-forces acting on the body began to increase. But the pressurized anti-load space suit did its job, the pressure from the gases and the seat’s contraction tightened the blood vessels, maintaining the overload at a stable value, far less intense than during centrifuge training.

Deng Lei worked hard to forget the fact that he was sitting on a rocket and strived to treat this as an ordinary flight mission, to avoid an excessive heart rate due to overexcitement.