Riding the wind of rebirth

Zhou Zhi shook hands with her: "I didn't expect you to make such a fast pace; it far exceeds our expectations."

"If you provide the funds in time, we can't find a reason not to hurry," Luo Yujuan joked with Zhou Zhi.

This is the team manager in charge of external liaison and reception at the base. Her heroic and spirited female soldier image caught Liang Hong's eye.

Besides Yang He and Feng Xueshan, it was also the first time that the friends saw what Zhou Zhi, who they thought was a good buddy, was like in front of outsiders. Looking at Luo Yujuan's lieutenant colonel rank on her shoulder, they couldn't help but be a little surprised.

"I didn't expect to see you all here." Li Laosan was quite familiar with many of Zhou Zhi's classmates, after all, they had a friendship from their trip to the Three Gorges. "Did Zhouzi call you all here?"

"Hello, Third Brother!" Yan Xiao greeted Li Laosan warmly. "We came to celebrate the Yi New Year and were just about to go back when we ran into this. We're so lucky."

"I wish I had come a few days earlier. Is that Xiao Shunzi that Xue Shan is holding? He's so cute."

"Hello, Third Brother, it's been a long time. This is Xiao Shunzi." Feng Xueshan was even more familiar with Li Laosan and said with a smile, "When you're older, go find Brother Tiedan to play."

Tie Dan is currently being cared for by his third aunt and uncle in Jingyang. This matter is neither too big nor too small, and it is considered a secret. After all, a sensational kidnapping case occurred in Hong Kong last year, and wealthy families are very careful.

Feng Xueshan knew this information, of course, but she couldn't say it too bluntly in public.

"Hmm, Tiedan is fun now too." Li Laosan laughed. "Let's go, the launch is at night, let's take a look first."

Luo Yujuan called over a soldier and distributed visitor badges to everyone: "This is the busiest time at the base right now. I have too many things to do here, so I'll have Xiao Li accompany you on the tour. We'll have lunch in the canteen at noon. In the afternoon, you can rest at the guesthouse. After dinner, we'll go to the observation hall to watch the launch."

"You're busy, you're busy." Zhou Zhi shook hands with Luo Yujuan again: "I'm really sorry to bother you."

Actually, let alone him, even Li Laosan shouldn't have come. After all, the relationship between the satellite launch mission and the recipient of the mission, as well as the relevant rights and obligations, are clearly defined in the contract. Each of the major participating parties has a professional team in charge. People of Li Laosan's and Zhou Zhi's level should just report the results later. Coming here in person, ostensibly to show their importance, is actually just causing trouble for others.

“You’re an expert, too,” Luo Yujuan said with a smile. “We won’t have a director explain it; you can just introduce it to the students.”

“I’ll do it, I’ll do it. I’m not exactly an expert, but I’ve been here a lot enough that I’ve learned about 60% of what’s been said,” Zhou Zhi said with a smile.

"Okay, see you at noon then."

"Does everyone know how many satellite launch centers our country has?" After Luo Yujuan left, Zhou Zhi acted as a tour guide, and under the accompaniment or rather, supervision of soldier Xiao Li, they began their tour of the base.

"I know, Jiuquan, Taiyuan, Xichang," Yan Xiao answered quickly. "That's right, currently my country has three major satellite launch centers," Zhou Zhi nodded. "Actually, there's another one, although it's currently under the jurisdiction of the Xichang Launch Center. Can you guess where this launch site is?"

"In XZ?" Yang Honghui said, "The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is so high, wouldn't launching from there save some energy?"

"How is that possible?" Yan Xiao laughed. "The satellite orbit is at least several hundred kilometers high, and the altitude is only four or five thousand kilometers.

"I guess we should go towards Chengdu. It has strong technology and convenient transportation. Hey, there are many electronics bases in Mianyang. Wouldn't it be easier to build satellites there? If so, I'll choose Mianyang."

Then everyone started talking nonsense, some saying Kunming, some saying Panzhihua, and Mianyang, which Yan Xiao had just mentioned, was the furthest.

Zhou Zhi finally smiled and revealed the answer: "You're all wrong. The ideal place for a satellite launch base is actually near the equator. Old Yang's idea about saving energy is actually correct. Because the Earth is a sphere, the equator is where the centrifugal force caused by the Earth's rotational linear velocity and inertia is the greatest. Therefore, launching near the equator can save a lot of fuel consumption, and the carrying capacity of the same type of rocket can be increased by about 10%."

"The Long March 2E rocket has a carrying capacity of four tons, so 10% of that is 4,000 tons. At 10,000 yuan per kilogram of carrying capacity, moving the rocket from Xichang to Wenchang for launch, just by changing the location, can save 40 million yuan."

"Of course, shipping costs are also a factor to consider, but the advantage of the Hainan Island coastal launch site lies precisely here. By using sea, the problem of transporting and launching giant rockets and high-mass polar-orbiting satellites on land can be solved. In addition, considering the surrounding environment, the safety of rocket debris falling is also greatly increased, so it is a very good launch site."

"Then why wasn't it built there before?" Yang Honghui blurted out, but immediately understood: "It was probably more about keeping it a secret, right?"

"Pretty much. Actually, each launch center has different tasks. For example, Jiuquan Launch Center was originally intended to be a comprehensive missile test range. Therefore, the main task of Jiuquan Launch Center is to launch various medium and low orbit test satellites and test the initial phase of various types of rockets."

"The Taiyuan Launch Center, due to its high latitude, mainly launches sun-synchronous orbit satellites, low- and medium-orbit spacecraft, and conducts full-range rocket tests."

"Due to its low-latitude geographical advantage, this area is primarily responsible for launching geosynchronous orbit communication satellites, broadcasting satellites, and meteorological satellites. Future navigation satellites will also be launched from here."

"The rockets used here are also quite large. The rocket we rented this time is the latest Long March 3B rocket, a three-stage liquid-fueled rocket developed by the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation. Its payload capacity ranks among the top in the world, reaching up to five tons."

"This rocket can be used to launch heavy satellites into geosynchronous transfer orbit, as well as light satellites that launch multiple satellites at once. In the future, it will also be used to launch truly 'heavyweight' missions such as large-mass polar-orbiting satellites, large-tonnage space stations, and deep space exploration spacecraft."

In fact, prior to the arrival of Zhouzhi, the Long March 3B rocket was designed and implemented immediately after the Long March 2E. However, due to the imperfect production management at the time, a small electronic component malfunctioned, causing the Long March 3B rocket, which was carrying the 708 international communications satellite launch mission, to exhibit abnormal flight attitude about two seconds after ignition and liftoff. The rocket nose-down caused it to deviate from the launch direction and tilt to the right. Finally, about 22 seconds later, the rocket nose-down landed and exploded violently only 1,200 meters from the launch pad. Not only was the entire satellite and rocket lost, but more than 80 houses were also destroyed, resulting in 6 deaths and 57 injuries.

That accident directly led to a complete downturn in China's space launch services. The space sector underwent a thorough quality overhaul, eventually establishing a comprehensive process quality control management system, which ultimately enabled space technology to reach new heights once again.

However, in this era, because the military industry had introduced the Clover Group's process system, quality control system, and inspection system ahead of time, and with the launch of smart terminals, it achieved intelligent computer control. This allowed the aerospace technology quality management system to skip the detours of the previous era, achieve leapfrog development, and directly enter a period of explosive growth. (End of Chapter)