Riding the wind of rebirth

At the satellite launch base, Zhou Zhi is attending a military work report.

Originally, he had no right to participate in such a confidential and high-level meeting, and he himself didn't even want to come. The thought of a student who was not a soldier listening to reports among a group of soldiers of terrifyingly high ranks made him feel a little uneasy.

But it is said that his name was personally called by the superiors, so he had to come.

This work report is a summary of the latest launch mission. This recent rocket launch has been full of twists and turns.

This was the last launch of the Long March 2E rocket, and it was also a launch that was both a failure and a success.

As a new type of commercial rocket with a 4-ton payload and high thrust, the Long March E rocket, also known as the "Long March F", was developed from the very beginning for the commercial purpose of undertaking external satellite launches.

In 85, China announced that the Long March rocket would be put on the international market and undertake foreign launch missions. Concept design began in 86, and a contract was signed with Hughes Company to launch Austar in 88. The formal development of the rocket began at the end of 88.

Analyzing from the timeline, the contract came first and the rocket came later, which was almost tailor-made.

The payload of this launch included two satellites, one was the TV broadcasting satellite "Austar B2" designed by Hughes for Australia's Sete Company, and the other was a communications satellite that Pakistan was riding on.

The launch was not smooth. Forty-seven seconds after the rocket was launched, the Pakistani satellite on top suddenly exploded, causing the front fairing to blow open and fall off.

However, in this situation, the emergency mechanism in the process quality management system played a huge role. When the satellite explosion caused vibration and the carrying weight suddenly decreased, the rocket automatically adjusted its attitude and continued to fly according to the emergency procedures, eventually sending the "Austrasat B2" and the remaining parts of the Pakistani satellite into the predetermined orbit!

Of course, the BA satellite was not working, but the AuSat B2 was operating normally and sending back normal signals. After the most rigorous inspection by Hughes and Set, it was considered that the satellite was intact and the launch mission was a complete success!

This is an absolutely amazing event in the history of rocket launches. It is the first time that a rocket can continue to perform its mission successfully after such a serious accident.

The Pakistani satellite was originally developed by China with the help of Pakistan. If it exploded, it exploded. We can just build another one and find another opportunity to ride on it. However, the Australian satellite is related to international contracts, and there are tens of millions of dollars in foreign exchange income and tens of millions of dollars in insurance income.

Of course, there is also the unexpected compensation of hundreds of millions of dollars caused by the failure, which is a difference of more than 100 million US dollars.

Fortunately, although there was an accident, the result was good.

Afterwards, the relevant ministries and commissions immediately launched a work review and finally determined that there was a problem with the pressure valve of the attitude adjustment device of the Baxing.

This question is not important. What is very important is why, when the fairing of the Ba star was blown off, the Chang Er Kun was still able to deliver the Au star to the designated location and work normally!

So this report meeting was held.

The reason why Zhou Zhi was named to attend the meeting was because everyone believed that the launch base's latest process quality management system had played a huge role.

This system has improved management efficiency, strengthened quality management, implemented personnel responsibilities, liberated human resources, and combined with efficient process management, it has enabled the base's emergency system to be truly implemented and truly operational at critical moments, playing a key role. This emergency management system actually existed a long time ago, but in the process of integrating it into the process quality management system, the joint team discovered many bugs in the system, work process, and design process, which would make it impossible for the emergency subsystem, which serves as an engineering bypass, to operate.

This is also the biggest gain of this research and development. The entire system is a huge virtual production system. The testing process is actually to simulate the entire launch mission in the system.

During this process, under the careful supervision of Li Weigang, Zhang Weichao and Zhou Zhi, all kinds of breakpoints, single points, defects and bugs that were previously hidden under the huge workload were all exposed.

The next step is of course to sort out, streamline, remove redundancy, design and optimize. For example, the bypass system, which is generally not used and no one cares about, such as the fictitious emergency management system, has been turned into an executable system sub-module with high availability.

The total investment in this system was five million yuan, mainly for the purchase of smart terminals and the equipping of information networks.

There is no doubt that in 96, launch bases, information networks and intelligent office systems were not yet popular.

But what's even funnier is that even in Silicon Valley thirty years later, information equipment such as public wireless communication networks are still very poor, even worse than in most rural areas of China. If you tell this to many people who admire the West, they won't believe it.

The remaining equipment cost far more than five million, but Zhou Zhi donated it directly to the base on the grounds of experimenting with computing power matrix + virtual machine + COSTS system application, and built this system.

Now the results are out. The investment of 15 million has saved the country from a loss of nearly 200 million US dollars. This is why Zhou Zhi was specifically asked to attend this briefing meeting.

Just before attending this meeting, Hu Changfeng called and said that he had received official notices from several major banks and insurance companies that Changtian smart terminals had been included in their centralized procurement lists.

This batch of orders is terrifyingly large. Now is the prelude to the implementation of electronic information technology by major financial institutions. This vigorous "information technology movement" will start in 96 and last until 10.

After that, all types of terminals will be completely replaced by computers. During such a long period, imported equipment will eat up 17% of the dividends of the first ten years, and will only be gradually replaced by domestic equipment in the later period. It was not until 27 that the concept of "National Information Innovation" was first proposed, and domestic equipment was comprehensively replaced for information security. Finally, the task was basically completed in years.

It should be said that the top management is absolutely clear-headed. It is not that they are unwilling to make domestic substitutions. On the contrary, they have been quite proactive. Unfortunately, the starting point of the last life was indeed too backward, and it would not be possible without foreign products and equipment.

Now, at least the smart terminals are the first generation of graphical terminal products developed in the world, and the performance is quite excellent, so excellent that both Samsung and Sony are willing to exchange their superior technologies for it. Moreover, it has just made a great contribution to the country. Driven by various tangible and intangible forces, Hu Changfeng is now happy that he has opened up a huge source of wealth for the Shanghai Group, but at the same time he is worried about how to quickly expand production capacity to meet market demand.

Although Zhou Zhi was full of confidence in the application prospects of smart terminals, he did not expect the rewards to come so quickly.

However, what he did not expect was the importance that the top management attached to the quality process management system. (End of this chapter)