This star is going to the moon

Chapter 361 Lu Yun: Private Rockets Are Thriving!

Sometimes you have to admire those foreign political groups; how do they manage to turn politics into something funnier than comedy or stand-up comedy?

Of course, this wouldn't have been possible without the participation of those political content creators on social media.

But there's nothing they can do; they're being chased around and fed, they have no choice but to eat.

They ate well, and the audience had something to watch—it was like Qin Shi Huang looking in a mirror—a win-win situation!
[I can't hold back anymore. This old man is almost eighty, how could he be elected? Isn't he afraid of developing dementia while in office?]

[This old man was born in 1942, right when World War II was raging. He was indeed an old politician, quite old.]

[Damn, no wonder Trump broke down and accused Harden of cheating. If I were him, I wouldn't accept it either.]

I don't think Trump's defeat was unjust. He jumped straight from being a businessman into the political arena; wasn't that just asking to be played?

Indeed, just like Schwarzenegger as governor, without a strong foundation or allies, he couldn't get anything done, and being ousted was only a matter of time.

"Well, it's none of our business anyway, let's just enjoy the show."

[Of course it's connected! Compared to Trump's inexperienced and reckless moves, even his obvious ones, it's cunning old politicians like Deng who are the most dangerous, resorting to nothing but underhanded tricks.]

[See? Anyway, I think Biden is more dangerous than Trump. Now we can only hope that Biden really has dementia, and then Trump comes back to power four years later, giving them a real back-and-forth.]

[Hey bro, hey bro, the Americans are now in the midst of the late Ming Dynasty's factional strife mode. There's definitely going to be a lot of bizarre or shocking news coming up.]

[If we're talking about quirky things, it's still the everyday life that's getting more and more abstract, but the sacred essence remains unchanged!]

There's no way around it; that's just how it is in small countries. Internal breeding within a small circle will inevitably lead to this situation sooner or later.

[Hey, let's look at the domestic scene. Lu Yun posted on Weibo wishing two other private aerospace companies a successful maiden flight of their rockets.]

[Oh, our country has private aerospace companies other than Blue Star Aerospace that have developed rockets?]

Yes, brother, yes...

The space market is too big; no single entity, Blue Star Space, can possibly dominate it.

Of course, even if one could do that, one couldn't truly control everything; doing so would not end well.

However, one cannot directly control everything, but there are indirect methods, such as incorporating other competitors into one's own technical system.

Just like Laos and China, we should vigorously develop a complete industrial system and become the world's factory, so that almost all industrial products in the world cannot do without Laos and China.

Even if there is no apparent connection, there are always intricate connections at the grassroots level.

Previously, Lu Yun's "Wan Hu" rocket shocked the world with its success, and then he open-sourced some of the technology. It would be strange if other aerospace companies that wanted to achieve quick results and get a share of the pie didn't take the bait.

Galaxy Glory was founded in 2018. It builds solid rockets with a takeoff mass of 30 tons. Although it is far from the "Wanhu" rocket, it still uses a lot of Luyun's open source technology.

Its maiden flight mission secured commercial orders, and it is China's first low-orbit satellite Internet of Things constellation—Tianqi Satellite.

It consists of a network of 38 satellites, providing global short-term data collection.

Committed to providing global IoT-related industry users with near real-time IoT satellite data services covering the entire globe, truly realizing the interconnection of everything in the air, sea, and land, building an integrated space-ground satellite IoT ecosystem, and comprehensively solving the IoT data communication problems in network blind spots at sea, in the air, and on land.

It started launching in 2018, always using rockets from the national aerospace team, and using whatever rockets were available, having used six different models in total.

There's nothing we can do about it; after all, each of its satellites only weighs a few dozen kilograms.

The reason we used Galaxy Glory's "Ceres God" first launch rocket was because it was cheap.

Furthermore, they also have faith in Bluestar Aerospace's open-source technology. At the same time, "Ceres" followed the example of "Wanhu" by sending several student satellites from the owner's alma mater during its maiden flight.

The owner of Galaxy Glory is from Beihang University.

Therefore, the Ceres rocket, with a payload capacity of 300 kg to a sun-synchronous orbit, successfully carried a 50 kg Tianqi satellite and several student satellites on its maiden flight!

Lu Yun remembered that this type of rocket also had a successful maiden flight in his previous life.
On the other hand, Deep Blue Arrow's "Red Sparrow II" has a deep connection with Blue Star Aerospace.

Its rocket body is also 3.35 meters in diameter and is a reusable rocket.

It's just a bit short, only 50 meters high, and it uses liquid oxygen and methane fuel.

Because they weren't as daring as Lu Yun, their designs were more conservative in all aspects.

For example, instead of using a common-bottom reservoir, a traditional fuel tank design was used, resulting in an excessively heavy rocket body and insufficient fuel capacity.

This resulted in the Red Sparrow II having a takeoff mass of only 220 tons and a single-use carrying capacity of only 6 tons, with a recoverable carrying capacity of 4 tons.

If calculated according to the proportion of the "Wanhu" rocket, the "Hongque-2" rocket actually has a single-use carrying capacity of 9 tons and a recoverable carrying capacity of 6.7 tons.

However, Deep Blue Arrow is indeed developing a reusable rocket for the first time, and the fuel it uses is not the traditional and mature liquid oxygen and kerosene, but liquid oxygen and methane, so a conservative design is reasonable.

The most important thing now is to get the rocket up and running.

As for the remaining transport capacity, we can explore it later.

Because of its conservative approach, the maiden flight of "Red Sparrow II" did not involve a first-stage recovery like "Wan Hu," but instead adopted a one-time recovery method.

Because BlueStar Aerospace pioneered this approach, when "Red Sparrow II" made its maiden flight, in addition to several companies' commercial small satellites, it also carried a bunch of small satellites built by students from the alma mater of the boss and the alma mater of the chief designer.

In my previous life, the "Red Sparrow II" rocket was scheduled to make its maiden flight two years later, but the maiden flight failed because the second stage rocket's paddlewheel engine malfunctioned.

The four smaller engines surrounding the main engine are responsible for providing power for the rocket's second-stage attitude control and precise orbit insertion.

(The red box indicates the main engine, and the four small nozzles around it are the mobile engine.)
The reason for this approach is that the Deep Blue Arrow's engine design capabilities were not strong enough, and in order to launch on time and secure investment, this design was adopted.

Unfortunately, problems still arose in the end.

Fortunately, a year later, the second rocket successfully entered orbit, making "Red Sparrow II" the world's first liquid oxygen methane rocket to successfully enter orbit.

This can be considered as creating new history.

With Lu Yun's open-source technology in this life, Deep Blue Arrow directly eliminated the game console, reducing the system's complexity and also reducing its weight by about 400 kilograms.

With the technical support, they were able to give the second-stage engine a ±4° bidirectional sway function, allowing for attitude control without the need for a hovercraft.

Therefore, the "Red Sparrow II" flew very steadily and was a success on its maiden flight, achieving the achievement of "the world's first liquid oxygen methane rocket to successfully enter orbit" three years ahead of schedule!
After Lu Yun confirmed that the two new domestically produced rockets had successfully completed their maiden flights on two separate days, he happily posted on Weibo.

Two more domestically produced rockets have joined the "World Space Orbital Insertion Club" in the past two days. A happy toast to the booming private space industry! Humanity's future will surely lead to the stars!

Lu Yun wouldn't be as boastful as Ma Yilong, claiming that others are his "followers".

Speaking of Elon Musk, the advanced prototype of his 9-meter diameter Super Falcon second-stage rocket is about to undergo its first static fire test, preparing for its 12.5-kilometer high-altitude test flight in December.

Lu Yun remembered that this thing melted an engine when it was statically ignited in his previous life. He wondered what would happen in this life.
Elon Musk: [I've already popped the champagne!]

(End of this chapter)