Chapter 493 First Flight and Rocket Recovery
At the Chiyang Rocket Launch Site, Ma Lin, a CBS reporter from Beautiful Country, was broadcasting live to the audience.
Although she is a reporter from the beautiful country, she is not European or American, but immigrated to the beautiful country from China and has lived and settled in the beautiful country for many years.
"Viewers, please look, behind me is the Kunpeng rocket manufactured by Jieke Group. According to data released by Jieke Group, the Kunpeng rocket is 185 meters long, 15 meters in diameter, equipped with 44 Airpeng engines, and the rocket's take-off mass reaches 11,380 tons, and the payload in low-Earth orbit reaches 850 tons, which is four times larger than the Saturn V, the largest rocket ever produced by mankind.”
Facing the camera, Ma Lin had a charming smile on her face. After talking about the data, the camera focused on the Kunpeng rocket that had been erected next to the launcher and was ready to go.
"But that's Jieke Group's own statement. Whether this rocket can succeed or not is still a question mark.
Let’s interview the visitors at the site to see what they think.
Hello sir, I am a reporter from CBS. Do you think this Kunpeng rocket can be launched successfully? ”
Holding the microphone, Ma Lin approached the tourists and asked them one by one.
"I think it would be fine if Jieco Group could build mechas, but Rockets, with all due respect, they don't have the talent."
"It's very difficult. I feel like the rocket will disintegrate in the air."
"I'm here to see the fun, come on Jieke Group, whether it's an explosion or a success, I can feast my eyes on it."
I interviewed several tourists in succession, and most of them were not optimistic about the launch of the Kunpeng rocket.
"It seems that no one really believes in the Kunpeng rocket. A new player like the Jieko Group wants to join the space party. I think they still have a long way to go."
With her beautiful eyes flashing and a charming smile on her lips, Ma Lin faced the camera lens and broadcast the live broadcast back to the beautiful country in real time.
There are hundreds of reporters and media outlets like Ma Lin in the specially set up media area.
Under the gimmick of being the most powerful rocket in human history, the number of viewers who watched the live broadcast of the rocket's first flight through TV stations and social platforms such as the Internet is conservatively estimated to exceed 300 million people.
In the rocket command center, Su Jie brought Liu Yingying here again.
"Mr. Su, press the launch button."
Pang Liangzhi stood in front of Su Jie, his face visibly nervous.
Su Jie patted Pang Liangzhi on the shoulder and said with a smile: "There is no need for such a ceremony. You are the chief designer of this rocket, so you should press it yourself."
Pang Liangzhi took a deep breath and walked to the rocket launch button with excitement and anxiety.
The staff on the side stared at the time indication of the electronic clock and kept reporting: "Five minutes to prepare, three minutes to prepare. One minute to prepare"
With the arrival of the last minute, various tracking and measurement equipment on the field were turned on, as well as high-speed cameras, tape recorders and other recording equipment.
"Ten-second countdown to launch, 10, 9"
The whole audience held their breath, and every engineer clenched his fists and looked at the screen without blinking.
"3, 2, 1, light the fire."
When the countdown reaches zero, the button is pressed by Pang Liangzhi.
Immediately there was a continuous huge roar from the rocket launch site, like a landslide or a tsunami, shaking the earth.
From the rocket launch base, huge flames and thick smoke spewed out, deafening noise and surging shock waves. The tourists and media watching from the outside could even feel the ground shaking.
Amid the screams of tens of thousands of tourists at the scene, the high-pressure gas ejected by the Kunpeng rocket formed a reaction force under the strong thrust of the fuel. The Kunpeng rocket rose straight up.
In just ten seconds, the rocket accelerated to the speed of sound, its tail sprayed out with dazzling flames, and the exhaust gas condensed into smoke in the air, extending like a white streak in the sky, forming brilliant clouds in the shape of a disk.
"It's flying."
“Damn, he’s so handsome and awesome!”
"Shet, this rocket really took off. I thought it would explode on the spot."
The audience's mouths opened wide. The huge size and weight of the Kunpeng rocket was like a 10,000-ton destroyer taking off in front of everyone.
The beautiful and shocking picture made every viewer who witnessed it tremble in their hearts. They could truly feel the charm of science and technology created by human beings.
I don’t know who started it, but at first there was sparse applause, and then the applause became continuous and thunderous.
"Explode! Explode! Explode!!!"
Of course, there are some people who are unhappy now. Ma Lin, a CBS reporter, stared at the Kunpeng rocket taking off, muttering to herself, wishing she could slap the Kunpeng rocket down.
In Ma Lin's view, the beautiful country is the strongest country in the world and has the strongest scientific and technological strength.
It is difficult for her to accept that a force like the Jieko Group should surpass the beautiful country in the space field. She is full of patriotism for the beautiful country, even more than many beautiful people.
But no matter how she thought about it, the Kunpeng rocket took off and flew higher and higher, flying more and more steadily, straight into the sky, gradually turning into a small bright spot, and finally completely disappeared from the field of vision.
The explosion and disintegration that Ma Lin had longed for did not appear on the Kunpeng rocket, which made Ma Lin disappointed.
Helpless, Ma Lin could only hold back her inner reluctance, walked to the camera, and showed a stiff smile: "We saw that the Kunpeng rocket has successfully lifted off and completed the take-off stage, but whether it can fly into space and complete the satellite The deployment is still uncertain. Only when the satellite can truly operate can the Kunpeng rocket be called a success.”
In her words, Ma Lin's voice had a sour taste.
The current situation was not what she expected to see. She originally planned to watch Jieco Group's jokes, but now she suddenly found out that Jieco Group's Kunpeng rocket seemed to be really possible to succeed in its first flight.
At the same time, there were cheers in the rocket command center. Engineers hugged each other excitedly and their joy was beyond words.
"Everyone be quiet, we haven't succeeded yet."
As Pang Liangzhi spoke, his palms were actually trembling slightly, showing that he was not calm inside. It was just that the Kunpeng Rocket had not yet completely succeeded, and he was restraining his inner emotions.
"With a good start, success is not far away. When we succeed, I will send red envelopes to everyone."
Su Jie's words immediately made the atmosphere more lively, but everyone did not forget their responsibilities and quickly sat back down again to monitor the situation of the rocket.
Across the land in Indochina, radars at monitoring stations are capturing the flight trajectory of the Kunpeng rocket.
On the sea, there are also ocean-going survey ships, which accurately measure, record and report the rocket's flight speed, altitude and attitude at every moment. A large amount of measurement data is gathered from all directions to the rocket command center, and good news keeps coming.
“Good tracking!”
"The engine works fine!"
"The flight attitude is normal!"
On the rows of screens, colorful numbers were exchanged frequently, and the automatic recorder gently traced the curve of the rocket's flight trajectory on the display board. These scenes will also be broadcast to major media around the world and enter the audience's field of vision.
"How beautiful! This is our own rocket!"
Liu Yingying on the side couldn't take her eyes off, watching the picture transferred on the big screen, which was taken by multiple cameras installed on the Kunpeng rocket.
Through the camera, the Kunpeng rocket has left the atmosphere at this time. Looking down, you can see the arc of the blue star, the gauze-like white clouds, the distinct coastline, the brown mountains, the continuous rivers, and the vast expanse. , like a silent picture scroll, showing the depth and tranquility of space.
"First stage ignition separation."
In space, the first stage of the rocket begins to separate, which is the bottom section of the rocket. Moving upwards, it is the second stage and fairing of the rocket.
Today's rockets all adopt a multi-stage structure, because the maximum speed of most single-stage rockets currently does not reach 7.9 kilometers per second. If the rocket cannot reach this speed, it cannot fly away from the Blue Star.
Therefore, only multi-stage rockets can be used, and the structure of multi-stage rockets is like a relay race, accelerating step by step, and then exceeding the first cosmic speed to send the spacecraft into the blue star orbit.
The Kunpeng rocket also has a multi-stage structure, with a total of two stages. At this time, the first-stage rocket is thrown away, and the second-stage rocket continues to ignite, and the flight speed further increases, flying towards the predetermined orbit.
The first-stage rocket lost its kinetic energy, as if it had used all its strength to throw its child away, and it began to fall back into the arms of Mother Earth.
This is also a routine operation for rocket launches. First-stage rockets are basically disposable items.
But all the viewers who were watching the Kunpeng rocket suddenly discovered that something was wrong with this first-stage rocket.
As the first-stage rocket fell and rolled, flames kept coming out of the engine at the tail of the rocket body. The rocket body was constantly adjusting, gradually changing to a straight-falling flight attitude, and then re-entering the atmosphere.
"This is rocket recovery."
All the viewers who were watching the live broadcast were shocked when they witnessed this scene.
Today, there is only one aerospace company in the world that can recycle rockets, and this company is the famous Space Exploration Technology Company.
Even the official aerospace departments of other countries cannot recover rockets. You can imagine the difficulty involved.
Under everyone's shocked eyes, when the rocket was still 10,000 meters away from the ground, all the remaining engines of the rocket started, using thrust to continuously reduce the landing speed and prepare for landing.
At the Chiyang Rocket Launch Site, tourists and media were leaving one after another because the Kunpeng rocket had disappeared from sight.
But soon, some sharp-eyed tourists saw a fire shining like a shooting star in the sky.
With the exclamations, more and more tourists looked up.
But I saw a rocket core stage nearly 100 meters falling. The fire gushing out from its tail and the powerful reaction thrust were causing the rocket to continue to slow down and slow down again.
"The rocket is flying back."
"By chance, Jieke Group actually has rocket recovery technology."
"Are you kidding? Can such a heavy rocket be recycled?"
Under the shocked eyes of all the visitors, four supports were opened under the first-stage rocket when it was still five kilometers above the ground.
In the end, the entire first-stage rocket was very stable, with almost no deviation, and landed on the rocket launch site.
The support landed smoothly without tipping over. With all rocket engines shut down, the first-stage rocket with a pitch-black surface landed steadily and was recovered successfully.
At this time, the belated audience let out a scream, and Ma Lin's chest was rising and falling. She was dumbfounded when she saw the technical strength displayed by Jieke Group.
Beautiful country, NASA.
Hundreds of NASA employees are gathering together to watch the live broadcast of the Kunpeng rocket's first flight. They are mainly watching the Jieke Group's jokes.
As a result, Jieke Group's Kunpeng rocket flew smoothly and even recovered the rocket.
The originally noisy scene suddenly became quiet.
At the back of the team, there were two men drinking coffee.
One person is NASA Administrator Burton, and the other person is wearing casual clothes. He is Muska, who was invited by NASA Administrator Burton. He is the founder and chairman of Space Exploration Technology Company.
"Wardfa, how is it possible!"
Muska, who was drinking coffee and watching the live broadcast of the Kunpeng rocket's first flight, spat out a sip of coffee.
Looking at the first-stage rocket recovered by Jieco Group, the expression on his face froze.
It was a surprise to him that the Jieco Group could successfully launch the Kunpeng rocket. Now it could even do things like rocket recovery. Maska could hardly believe his eyes.
You know, when he founded the Space Exploration Technology Company, he experienced many failures for six years before finally launching the first non-governmental rocket into space.
Not to mention rocket recovery technology, which experienced countless failures during that period. It was the accumulation of data from each failure that led to the current mature rocket recovery technology.
As a result, Jieco Company launched its rocket for the first time. Not only did it succeed in its first flight, it also had rocket recovery technology.
And its technological content and level are much stronger than those of his Space Exploration Technology Company.
After all, the Kunpeng rocket is 185 meters long, 15 meters in diameter, and weighs tens of thousands of tons. It is the most powerful rocket in human history.
The most mature rocket model of Space Exploration Technology Company, Falcon 9, is 70 meters in height, 3.7 meters in diameter, and weighs 549 tons.
Comparing the two, it is definitely more difficult to recover the Kunpeng rocket. After all, such a large weight is there, and the technical difficulty required is higher.
This also means that Jieke Group has surpassed Space Exploration Technology Company, the world's most powerful private aerospace technology company, in the field of rockets.
"Jeco Group actually has a big trick like rocket recovery. Maska, have any engineers in your company resigned recently?"
NASA Director Burton's hand trembled, a lot of coffee spilled, and his brows furrowed into a frown.
Maska came back to his senses and knew what Burton meant. He thought it was the leakage of his company's technology. He shook his head and said: "No, we can't release talents who master the core rocket recovery technology, and this involves materials, software and flight." Coordinated control of computers, controllers, precision guidance systems, etc. cannot be achieved by poaching one or two people, so Jieke Group’s rocket recovery technology must have been developed by itself.”
"Damn, where did this Jieke Group come up with so many advanced technologies?"
Burton's expression was very ugly. He originally called everyone to watch the joke of the Jieke Group, but now he felt like he had become a joke.
"This is really confusing. The speed of technological breakthroughs is too fast. It will be difficult for our rocket business to continue in the future."
Maska lamented that he, who originally dominated the rocket recycling track, now has an opponent like the Jieco Group, which immediately made him feel great pressure.
(End of chapter)