Technological power starts with upgrading lenses.

Chapter 450 We Were Misled
With the cooperation of the Jiuquan Launch Center, the booster was placed on the launch pad that afternoon. Afterwards, Yan Hui and his team checked it overnight to ensure that there were no problems during the transportation process.

In fact, Kang Chi only took a look at the booster and knew that they were working in vain.

Not to mention that these soldiers regard their mission as more important than their lives, and they are afraid of bumping into it.

Even if it really rolled off the car, it would definitely not be a big problem.

After all, those 10 billion yuan were not wasted. If they are so fragile, how can we talk about recycling them?
Although he knew it was all in vain, Kang Chi couldn't stop them. He could only let them do what they wanted and go to sleep.

When the alarm rang at eight o'clock in the morning, Kang Chi opened the curtains and found that these people were still busy on the launch pad in high spirits, and it seemed that they were already refueling the booster.

After arriving at the command center with coffee, Kang Chi quickly found Yan Hui who was communicating with Min Chen.

"Ahem...what's the situation?"

"Mr. Kang!"

After hearing Kang Chi's voice, Yan Hui immediately turned around and said hello: "The fuel has been refueled, and the final preparations before the test launch are being carried out. Everything is normal now."

Kang Chi nodded, then turned his gaze to Min Chen who was beside Yan Hui.

The launch was not actually conducted by Kang Chi or Yan Hui, but by Min Chen from Jiuquan Satellite Center.
The reason is actually very simple. Engineers who can design and manufacture cars may not be good at driving. Therefore, after the car is built, it is usually handed over to more professional teams and drivers to test drive and debug. The same is true for rockets.

As for the previous projects like nuclear fusion, why did Kang Chi personally take part in them?

Of course, it was because those fields were too blank and there was no team or practitioner more professional than Kangchi, so I had to do it myself.

"Director Min, ahem, I'll leave it to you today..."

"Mr. Kang, please be polite. We will do our best even without you telling us." Min Chen heard Kang Chi cough twice in a row, and the sound was a little different from yesterday, so he asked with some concern, "Is your throat okay?"

"It's okay, it's just that the air here is too dry and my throat feels a little uncomfortable."

Director Min was just about to ask him to stop drinking coffee and drink warm water, but Chen Hai next to him said directly into the microphone: "Go ask the logistics department what's going on. There's not even a humidifier in Mr. Kang's room? Also, ask them to quickly get a few humidifiers and throat moisturizers to the command center!"

Min Chen: “…”

This……

Is this the treatment given to national treasures?

……

"...5,"

"4,"

"3,"

"2,"

"1!"

"ignition!"

"Boom——"

At nine o'clock in the morning, accompanied by a deafening roar, the 13 engines under the booster ignited simultaneously, but after a full twenty seconds, the booster still stood upright on the launch pad without moving.

This was actually an intentional part of the experiment.

Normally, in order to allow the rocket to lift off the launch pad faster and thus reduce gravity loss, the initial thrust must be pulled to the highest level.

However, the purpose of this launch was not to enter orbit, but to conduct a number of test experiments. In order to measure the thrust adjustment capability of the engine, the thrust upon ignition was set to the lowest 10%.

"Thrust 11%, 12%, 13%..."

As the operator slowly pulled the push rod, the launch pad detected the lifting force and automatically opened the robotic arm, and then the booster finally slowly lifted off.

"21.9%!"

"Are you sure? It can fly with 21.9% thrust?!"

"So its thrust-to-weight ratio is now 4.55?"

"Is there really a total thrust of 4550 tons?!"

"hiss--"

After seeing this data, the command room suddenly became excited.

Although Kang Chi had already given the performance parameters of Tongtian-1 to the engineers at the Jiuquan Launch Center in advance, it was obvious that none of them took the data seriously.

The booster has an empty weight of 500 tons and can be filled with up to 1000 tons of fuel. The thrust of a single engine is 450 tons, and the total thrust is 4550 tons...

Look at what a number of tigers and wolves these are!
The more professional a person is, the more they will feel that none of this data is reliable.

Especially after Yan Hui asked them to only fill up 50 tons of fuel in the morning, on the grounds that 500% of the fuel would be enough to meet all the experimental projects, they became even more certain that these data were inflated.

In other words, that data is actually the ultimate goal of the project, not now.

However, who could have thought that Kang Chi gave them a big shock just as the experiment began!

However, this shock can only scare those who know the situation.

If we look at it from the perspective of an uninformed bystander, the launch just now was not really exciting at all, but rather felt a bit lame...

“Huh—I’m finally flying.”

Outside the launch center, a guard looked at the red flame and breathed a sigh of relief, but at the same time he could not hide his disappointment.

This was his fifth time to participate in the protection mission of a rocket launch, but he had never seen such a difficult rocket launch. It felt like a small horse pulling a big cart, struggling for a long time and failing to pull it...

He almost thought that today's test launch would end here.

……

At the same time, near the border of Afuhan and Kashi,
The two J-20s, which received orders from their superiors, are carrying out patrol missions.

"This is the command center, calling Black Tiger!"

"Black Tiger received!"

"The aircraft radar still didn't respond?"

"Correct."

"The target is only 250 kilometers away from you now. Your radar still has no reaction even at such a close distance. It can be basically determined that it is a stupid eagle. Be prepared for battle at any time. If the enemy crosses the line, shoot it down without warning!"

"Black Tiger received!"

The pilot codenamed Black Tiger said this and then looked at the radar on the fuselage to make sure there was still no signal from the opponent.

However, the insufficient power of the fuselage radar does not mean that the ground radar is useless. In fact, the ground radar had already discovered the opponent five minutes ago and shared the information with the aircraft in real time.

Although they were ready to shoot down the invaders, after several previous battles, the enemy clearly knew that their every move was clearly seen by China, and they did not dare to make any cross-border moves.

When it was about to cross the border airspace, the other side suddenly made a sharp turn, and then flew slowly along the border line, so that Black Tiger could easily follow it for a medium-distance companion flight, and at the same time began to broadcast warnings.

Through the glass, they could even roughly see the outline of the other aircraft. "Report, it is confirmed to be the SR-72 Silly Hawk reconnaissance aircraft. Their detection radar is facing 10 degrees east by north."

"Command received. Just keep an eye on it."

"receive."

Thinking of the Mach 6 speed of that thing that once fooled him around, Hei Hu couldn't help but ask, "Should we send Xunlong to meet him?"

"That's unnecessary. They're obviously here to watch the show. They won't do anything that crosses the line."

"All right……"

……

It has to be said that after Old M temporarily withdrew from Liuqiu, Brother Long's geographical advantage became increasingly greater.

Mao is guarding the north, and although there is also a Meng Gou who still cannot understand the situation, he is stuck in the middle and can neither go out nor come in, and can do nothing.

Not to mention the east and south.

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After the first island chain existed in name only, the huge strategic buffer space made it increasingly difficult for them to collect intelligence, and they could only start stealthily from the west.

Moreover, this sneaky approach is only aimed at targets like Afhan who do not have strong anti-stealth combat capabilities.

Inside the CIA headquarters building, a group of people were puzzled after seeing the real-time data sent by the Critical Eagle reconnaissance aircraft.

Their boss Hua sent a critical eagle over there, but this is the result of the detection?

It took a long time to take off, and then stopped directly after reaching an altitude of 20,000 meters.

"What are they doing? Rocket hovering?"

"Obviously, this is a reusable rocket, and this is a test of its balance performance."

"The height data is very stable. It seems that they have good balance ability."

"But no matter how good the balance is, it can't cover up the pitiful thrust."

"Wait, the altitude has changed!"

"21223 meters, 20456 meters, 19560 meters..."

Looking at the decreasing data, excitement and anticipation suddenly appeared on their faces.

Rocket failure!

The engine is out!
Explode!
Let it burn!
They kept praying in their hearts.

As the rocket freely fell, the altitude data became lower and lower, and soon exceeded what they considered to be the safe deceleration threshold.

The curse took effect!
Just when they wanted to cheer for the upcoming fireworks, the situation suddenly took a turn for the worse!
In just less than five seconds, the rocket's landing speed dropped from 180KM to 0.

“Brake…brake stopped?!”

"How can this be?!"

"Is the radar out of service?"

"No! It's speeding up!"

"..."

Looking at the numbers jumping on the screen, the agents of the CIA's China Technology Investigation and Tracking Team were numb.

5 seconds to stop, 183m/s acceleration...

What's the thrust-to-weight ratio?

In silence, the rocket has rapidly accelerated to the first cosmic speed, and at this time it is still more than halfway away from the 100KM Karman line.

"I see, we have been misled!"

"What they tested was not a launch vehicle at all, but a missile! And a reusable missile at that!"

missile?

After hearing this word, everyone suddenly understood.

With this explanation, everything seems to make much more sense.

There is no need to consider the load issue too much for missiles. After all, a nuclear warhead is only about 150KG. If the load is large, carry more missiles; if the load is small, carry fewer. It is just a matter of combat effectiveness.

At the same time, there is no strict requirement for the range of the missile. A longer one is an intercontinental missile, and a shorter one is a short-range missile. There is always a place for it.

Without considering the load and range, it is normal to have a high thrust-to-weight ratio and acceleration.

The smaller size of the rocket also seems to illustrate this point from the side.

"It turned out to be a false alarm..."

"But he is really greedy. He wants the missiles to be recyclable?"

"That's right, we haven't figured out how to use reusable rockets yet."

"..."

The flight trajectory of this "test missile" further confirmed their conjecture.

Normally, in order to overcome the earth's gravity and send payloads into space, the rocket's flight trajectory is usually upward.

In order to reduce the probability of being intercepted, the missile's trajectory pursues flexibility and diversity.

Just like this test-fired 'missile', after accelerating to the first cosmic speed, it quickly changed direction, flew back to China, and finally landed smoothly in an open space near the launch pad.

The CIA's final conclusion is:
Kang Chi is currently developing recoverable short-range and medium-range missiles.
The missile was eventually recovered successfully, indicating that their recovery technology had indeed achieved certain results, but the range and ammunition capacity should not be high.

Honestly, when seeing this conclusion, even the CIA itself found it a little unbelievable.
They already have fighter jets like the Swift Dragon, which have terrifying performance, so why do they still need to develop reusable missiles?

Isn't that a waste of time?

Faced with Kashimiya's questioning, the CIA agent could only forcefully explain: "Maybe they think that although the Xunlong is concealed, its strike speed is not as fast as missiles, so they want to continue to develop missile technology..."

"Still developing? Their military is already so strong, why are they still doing this? Fighting aliens? Yeah?"

"That is because they feel that the negotiation progress is too slow and they want to put pressure on the negotiation table..."

"We have already made concessions again and again, what else do they want?! Give them the second island chain too?!"

"Ahem, I remember they did mention the need to demilitarize the second island chain..."

"Get lost! Don't even think about it!"

"..."

(End of this chapter)