Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 233 The world was shocked by the successful recovery of the rocket

Xu Shenxue did not watch the rocket launch in the launch command room, but went to the balcony outside the command room and stood there watching the rocket in front of him ignite and take off.

At the moment the rocket was ignited, the test also began at this moment, and the countless sensors on the rocket began to transmit large amounts of data back to the base in real time.

As a launch flight aimed at testing, its primary goal is not even a successful launch, but to collect data, massive amounts of various data.

Therefore, a large number of various data sensors are deployed in the test rocket.

However, Xu Shenxue naturally could not pay attention to these massive amounts of test data. What he saw now was an extremely shocking scene.

Seven Suzaku-1 engines independently developed by Nanmen Aerospace Corporation ignited simultaneously, and then spewed out a high-temperature and high-speed tail flame. The high temperature of the tail flame instantly evaporated a large amount of cooling water used for cooling in the launch site, and a huge water mist quickly rose up, which looked like smoke from a distance.

This behemoth, with a diameter of 3.6 meters and a two-stage rocket design, has a total height of 67 meters and a total takeoff weight of 530 tons. It slowly left the ground, propelled by seven powerful Suzaku-1 liquid oxygen-coal engines.

The rocket is designed to directly target the Falcon 9 of the US Space Exploration Company. Both are neutral rockets, but they differ greatly in detailed technical features.
The Falcon 9 uses the Merlin engine, which has relatively smaller thrust but lighter weight. It uses nine engines.

The Nantianmen-5 rocket uses the Suzaku- engine, which has greater thrust per unit, but is also heavier in weight, and uses seven engines.

At first, the rocket took off slowly, but soon its speed increased and it rushed straight into the sky. The huge and dazzling tail flame could be seen even from a long distance.

Xu Shenxue looked up at the rocket rising into the sky, and his heart involuntarily surged with excitement... This was why he insisted on pursuing aerospace, not because of any commercial factors, nor for any other messy things, but purely out of his yearning for the sky and the stars!

He looks forward to one day in the future being able to travel into space and explore the interstellar space on his own spacecraft!

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The rocket flew higher and higher and soon entered the clouds. Because of the clouds, Xu Shenxue could no longer see the rocket.

He immediately hurried back to the command room. At this time, he saw the images of optoelectronic tracking set up from multiple angles on the large screen in the command room.

At the same time, there are images transmitted back in real time from the camera on the rocket.

Judging from the picture, the rocket is still flying steadily and its speed is getting faster and faster!

Deng Feiyue, who was standing by, couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief at this moment, even though he had commanded countless rocket launches in his career!

At least there were no problems during the takeoff phase and the ascent process, which means that the engine has been tested and the flight control system has also been tested.

This is not an easy thing to do!
At least the launch test has reached this point, which basically means that the core stage of the Nantianmen No. 5 rocket has been successfully launched.

This alone represents a huge historical breakthrough!

Although this is only a 500-ton medium-sized rocket, it does not have a bundled booster rocket. If it had a bundled booster rocket, it would have been able to continue to pull the thrust upwards.

The most important thing is that the research and development and manufacturing of the Nantianmen-5 rocket are actually different from traditional aerospace engineering.

The research and development focus of the Nantianmen No. 5 rocket, together with the previous No. 1 to No. test rockets, is not actually centered around the rocket itself, but around the Suzaku No. engine and flight control system, and the parallel scheme of the rocket engine.

In a sense, the so-called Rocket No. 5 is just a building block played by Nanmen's engineers. If necessary, from a technical point of view, it is entirely possible to connect more Suzaku- engines in parallel, load a dozen or even more, and increase the rocket's take-off weight to more than one thousand tons or even more!
The most important thing is that Nanmen Aerospace Company’s approach to rocket development is different from that of traditional aerospace agencies. Traditional aerospace agencies are too concerned about costs and their products are planned, including those in developed countries.

However, Nanmen Aerospace is a serious commercial rocket company. Although it does not have any orders at present, it still follows business principles in research and development and production.

For example, when using materials, they often consider it from a more commercial perspective, such as controlling costs, obtaining greater cost-effectiveness, etc. At the same time, many parts are not specially made or customized by themselves, but directly issue bidding documents to allow many other companies to participate.

What impressed Deng Feiyue deeply was a temperature sensor used on the rocket. At first, according to experience, this kind of high-precision aerospace-specific sensor naturally needs to be customized by a dedicated manufacturer, and the price is naturally very expensive.

But how did Nanmen Airlines' supply chain work? After they asked the technical department to propose technical indicators, they looked around the domestic market and found this thing from an inconspicuous domestic company, which was only worth 5% of the custom price!

It cost a hundred dollars for a high-end aerospace component, but they found a replacement in the civilian market for only five dollars!

There are actually many similar situations!

What should we do if civilian products sometimes fail to meet the design specifications?
In an extreme example, what if a certain civilian sensor can't stand up to the harsh environment for that long? The engineer hit his forehead and thought, what's the big deal? I'll use two sensors. When one sensor reaches 60% or 70% of its design life, I'll directly start the second sensor to take over. For safety reasons, I'll install three more!

Civilian sensors only cost a few dollars, so there’s no need to worry about wasting them!
Then Liuhe Investment will make certain strategic investments in the company, allowing them to develop better sensors and explore the application of these sensors in other fields. If they are not careful, these sensors may gain a considerable advantage in other supply application markets and they can make another fortune.

Then there are other areas, such as the rocket hull. The purchasing department of Nanmen Aerospace Company searched domestically and abroad based on technical indicators and found that a small foreign company had a very good aluminum-lithium alloy that could reduce the weight of the hull and increase its strength, but there was no such manufacturer in China!
Liuhe Investment immediately acquired the company, obtained the formula and patent authorization, and started direct production in China. By the way, this alloy material also has a large market in other fields, so they could make a small profit.

Operations like this are almost impossible to carry out in traditional planned space agencies!
This is because the space agencies within the plan generally do not consider any commercial issues. They will not be like Nanmen Aerospace Company, which considers cost, cost-effectiveness, and industrialization in everything it does.

The same goes for the rockets themselves!
The rocket hasn't been produced yet, but the marketing personnel of Nanmen Aerospace Company, who came from the marketing department of Zhiyun Technology, have already been soliciting orders from all over the world.

We have signed a number of intention orders for domestic and foreign satellite launches, and are just waiting for the rocket to be produced to make a fortune!
Since joining Nanmen Aerospace Corporation, Deng Feiyue has been able to break through the cognition accumulated over decades of professional career.

However, he was glad that his perception was broken!

Because only in this way can we produce the Nantianmen-5 rocket in front of us. Its performance indicators are far ahead of similar domestic rockets, but the launch cost is much lower!
Just as he was sighing, the voice of the staff in the control room came: "The first stage rocket separated successfully, and the first and second stage rockets separated successfully!"

Looking back at the big screen, the sensors on the rocket were still transmitting video images.

The sensor carried in the second-stage rocket clearly captured the separation of the first and second stages of the rocket, and then the second-stage rocket successfully ignited and continued to rush into the sky!

The first stage rocket then begins to freely fall back toward the Earth!
At this time, many people in the command center were paying close attention to the situation. Some of them were paying attention to the second-stage rocket, which would continue to move towards space until it sent the test satellite to the predetermined orbit if everything went well.

The first stage of the rocket falls toward the earth, then returns to the launch site and is recovered.

But more people are focusing on the recovery of the first-stage rocket!

It didn't take long before the image on the big screen showed that after a series of directional adjustments, the first-stage rocket arrived above the launch site.

It is not easy for this behemoth, which is tens of meters high, to make flexible adjustments in the air. This requires the ultimate flight control technology.

The upcoming recovery plan is the ultimate in extremes and will greatly test the capabilities of the flight control system developed by South Gate Aerospace engineers.

Xu Shenxue once again went outside the balcony and looked up. A small black dot had appeared in the sky. It was the first stage of the Nantianmen No. 5 rocket that was freely falling.

The rocket fell very quickly, and soon it descended to a height that could be easily seen clearly. At this time, the rocket suddenly ejected multiple jets in different directions, quickly adjusting the rocket from an irregular state to a straight state.

Immediately afterwards, the engine at the bottom of the rocket started again, spewing out a huge tail flame!

Under the thrust of the rocket engine, the rocket's rapid descent quickly turned into a slow descent.

The rocket continued to descend towards the landing site, and Xu Shenxue's heart couldn't help but rise.

Soon, the rocket landed at a height of less than 100 meters from the ground. The speed of the rocket slowed down even more. It could be clearly seen that the rocket was making continuous adjustments under the control of the automatic flight control system.

At the same time, it slowly descended, eighty meters, fifty meters, thirty meters, and ten meters. During this process, the landing support frame on the rocket had also been opened.

Immediately afterwards, the rocket landed successfully and the engine shut down!
When Xu Shenxue saw the successful recovery of the first-stage rocket, many emotions suddenly arose in his heart, and a feeling of excitement surged up.

Even when Zhiyun Technology went public and the S9, S10 and S11 phones became popular, he was not so excited.

At the moment when the rocket landed successfully, Xu Shenxue couldn't help but raise his fist, roared, and then shouted to the people around him: "Did you see it? I knew it could be done a long time ago. I am the best, haha!"

Then he jumped up and said, "I'll see who dares to call me an amateur in the future. When it comes to playing with rockets, I'll be their ancestor!"

"Hahaha……"

The boss lost his temper! The assistant and security personnel beside him consciously blocked the front door to prevent anyone from coming in!
After all, he is the richest man in the world, so he still needs to maintain his dignity. The boss can be crazy, but their staff cannot!

After waiting for several minutes, Xu Shenxue finally calmed down, and then strode towards the launch control room. Dozens of people in the control room were also filled with joy.

Even Deng Feiyue, the chief designer of Rocket No. 5, had tears in his eyes!

Among all the people present, no one knew better than him what this successful recovery meant. It not only meant a huge breakthrough in technology, but also a significant reduction in launch costs.

This will have a huge boost to China's aerospace technology and even many future aerospace programs.

Putting these factors aside, just from the company's perspective, the successful recovery this time has brought about a significant reduction in launch costs, and will also enable the company's previous large number of launch mission intention orders to be converted into actual orders, bringing huge profits to the company.

Nanmen Aerospace Corporation, after all, is a commercial aerospace company and its purpose is to make money.

For a commercial launch, the launch cost is its greatest competitive advantage!
And now they have done all of this!

Xu Shenxue walked up to Deng Feiyue at this time and said, "Congratulations, Professor Deng. You have made great efforts and achieved success beyond my expectations!"

"To be honest, before I came here, I didn't expect this recovery plan to be successful. How can a rocket succeed without exploding eight or ten times? But you gave me a huge surprise!"

At this time, Deng Feiyue smiled awkwardly: "In fact, we exploded more than ten times, but more than twenty times..."

"It's just that the rockets used before were small test rockets!"

Xu Shenxue didn't take it seriously: "A small rocket is called a rocket. It's just a test model. It's used for test consumption. It doesn't count!"

Deng Feiyue was a little speechless after hearing this. The launch of a small rocket would cost at least several million, and at most tens of millions. Do you know how much pressure I felt when I watched rockets explode one after another?
Many former colleagues and even former superiors called me and said, "Old Deng, I know you have ideas and want to try out different technologies and contribute to the aerospace industry, but you can't just go and bomb the world's richest man... The world's richest man must have gone crazy and is coming here to spend billions and billions of dollars. This is a good thing and can boost the development of domestic aerospace."

But what if you blow it up too hard and scare people away?
You’ve scared people away and lost their investment. Don’t expect to come back and continue playing with your reusable rockets. We don’t have that much funding for you to blow them up!

However, despite this, Nanmen Aerospace still launches a test rocket every few days to conduct various tests. Because the launch tests always fail and explode, many people come to see the rocket launch fail!
There are also a large number of videos of Nanmen Aerospace Corporation’s failed test rocket launch circulating on the Internet.

Many people said that Xu Shenxue did not know his own limitations, saying that as a mobile phone developer, he actually switched to work on rockets, which was crazy.

You make good mobile phones, and tablets are also okay, but rockets... brother, this is too much.

In the past year, Nanmen Airlines has basically been a joke in the domestic and global aerospace industry!

Why not do something else instead of following Musk's example and recycling rockets? That's nonsense!
What's more, you are even more exaggerated than Musk. Others fail once in a while at most, but you fail every two or three days, and all kinds of rockets explode!

This has led to many people misunderstanding: Are rockets cheap?
But people in the industry know that even small rockets used for experiments are not cheap, costing millions or even tens of millions.

The way Nanmen Aerospace Company plays is too weird. A normal aerospace company or organization would never do this... Those crazy people are setting off rockets as fireworks!
Sometimes we choose to launch the rocket at night because there are many tourists who come to watch the rocket launch. Some tourists have given us feedback that the fireworks look better at night. Can you hold a night launch?
When the marketing department of Nantian Company heard this, they thought it made sense, and then asked the technical department to adjust the launch plan, specially planning a night launch during the holiday, and also announced the information in advance, which attracted many spectators to watch!
After watching the fireworks, the audience exclaimed that it was really exciting. The fireworks were worth tens of millions, which is not easy to see at other times!
Other aerospace companies or institutions would not build it this way even if they had the money.

Xu Shenxue actually didn't feel anything about this... because he was really rich, super rich... To be honest, he didn't care about the billions of investment in Aerospace, and the unit was Huayuan.

He can afford it even for his hobbies!
But as the specific technical person in charge, Deng Feiyue was under a lot of pressure... As rockets exploded one after another, his pressure became greater and greater.

Fortunately, the rocket was slowly developed after a lot of blasting... In fact, Nanmen Aerospace's rocket research and development does not use any overly tricky methods.

It means frying and modifying at the same time.

Explode once to find the problem, then solve the problem, then try again, and continue to make changes if it explodes again.

As time went by, it finally succeeded.

After the successful launch and recovery of a small test rocket not long ago, they pulled out the No. 5 rocket, a behemoth weighing more than tons, and prepared to give it a try.

I don’t know if it was because of good luck or the accumulation of technical skills this time, but not only was the launch successful, but the recovery was also successful.

Xu Shenxue and Deng Feiyue were also surprised by this!
But it doesn’t matter anymore. What matters is that the experiment was successful!

Not only was the recovery successful, the subsequent flight of the second-stage rocket was also very successful, and it sent an experimental communications satellite from the Zhiyun Research Institute into the predetermined orbit.

The entire launch test was a complete success!

Not long after the successful launch and recovery of Rocket No. 5, pictures and videos taken by many tourists and media reporters were uploaded to the Internet.

Many media outlets began to report heavily.

"Xu Shenxue's Nantianmen-5 rocket was successfully launched and recovered, creating a precedent in human history!"

Various news media used exaggerated headlines and descriptions to convey this breaking news from the aerospace industry to people.

It didn’t take long before Nanmen Aerospace released official news on its official website, Weibo and overseas Twitter, announcing that the first launch of the Nantianmen-5 reusable rocket was a complete success!
Xu Shenxue retweeted the news on Weibo and Twitter, and commented: "Thanks to the R&D team for their hard work. Let's rush to the stars together!"

After seeing the news of the successful launch of South Gate Aerospace, Musk remained silent for a long time. Finally, he congratulated on Twitter: "This is an important milestone in the history of human spaceflight, and it undoubtedly proves the feasibility of the reusable rocket technology route!"

Then he turned around and went to his own space exploration company, ready to start whipping the scientific researchers himself, striving to make rapid technological breakthroughs and catch up with the pace of Nanmen Aerospace Company.

They have fallen seriously behind in the field of reusable rockets!
On the 7:30pm news broadcast that day, the anchor reported the news in a clear and loud voice: "According to our reporter, my country's Nanmen Aerospace Co., Ltd. successfully launched the Nantianmen-5 recyclable rocket this afternoon. The rocket launch was a complete success. The test satellite reached the predetermined orbit, and the first-stage rocket was successfully recovered, creating a historical precedent... Professor Deng, chief designer of Nanmen, introduced that my country is the first country in the world to master large-scale recyclable rocket technology, and its overall technology is far ahead of other countries in the world. The Nantianmen-5 rocket has many characteristics such as low cost, good safety, and strong performance..."

At the same time, Nanmen Aerospace's marketing staff, while carrying out publicity, was also contacting potential customers, especially those who had previously signed letters of intent, in an effort to convert the letters of intent into actual orders.

However, other companies or institutions still have some concerns. Only Zhiyun Technology in the same system has actually placed an order, preparing to let Nanmen Aerospace Company launch the second communications satellite.

Zhiyun Technology’s communication satellite is not something very special, and it cannot even be said to be completely self-developed. Instead, it is developed in cooperation with a domestic university and is mainly used to build Zhiyun’s own satellite communication network.

Zhiyun is a global multinational enterprise with a large number of R&D centers, data centers and production bases around the world. The demand for satellite communications has always been there and is huge.

In the past, we rented satellite services, but now we cooperate with some university institutions to develop satellites on our own, and then launch them to build our own satellite communication network.

At the same time, this is also an attempt. Once the satellite technology is fully developed, we can try to provide satellite communication services for our own mobile phones and Hailan Automobile's cars.

Of course, these are all follow-up plans. For now, let’s just build a few experimental satellites for our own fun.

Orders from other companies or institutions are relatively complicated and not so easy to find, so you just have to take your time.

However, the luck seemed to have run out last time. When Nanmen Aerospace carried out the second launch of the No. 5 rocket in early April, although it successfully sent the satellite into the predetermined orbit, the first-stage rocket failed during the recovery test!

The huge explosion and flames shocked the world again...For a time, countless people were pessimistic about the reliability of Nanmen Aerospace's reusable rocket technology.

In this regard, Xu Shenxue was too lazy to pay attention to them!
Technological progress is never smooth sailing, and even with the help of the scientific research system, it is impossible for everything to go smoothly.

The same goes for rockets. They will naturally mature after being exploded a few times.

While the outside world was still hotly discussing Nanmen Aerospace Company's reusable rocket, Xu Shenxue had already turned his attention to Hailan Automobile's electric car launch conference.

In the past, Hailan Automobile Company has further improved the technology of electric vehicles, simplified the configuration based on the prototype car, mainly reducing the assisted driving to reduce costs, and then launched the mass-produced model: Hailan SEC series.

Xu Shenxue will personally introduce the Hailan SEC model to the world at the press conference, giving the world a little shock of autonomous driving technology.

Announce the arrival of a new era!

One chapter in the evening

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(End of this chapter)