This star is going to the moon

Chapter 518 The world line shifted, then shifted back.

Originally, the rocket's safety redundancy system was meant to be a precaution, but NASA didn't expect that the SLS rocket's safety redundancy system was specifically designed for that!
The maiden flight was a high-level affair!

"SGD-GN pipeline is offline and has been automatically replaced with redundant pipeline!"

"The LSN circuit is broken and has been automatically replaced by a redundant circuit!"

"The KENG chip has lost connection and has been automatically replaced with a redundant chip!"

"OAE lithium-ion battery disconnected, already automatically..."

“LAGT…”

"……normal!"

"normal!"

After hearing a series of bad news, the daytime staff in the command center finally heard the word "normal".

Fortunately, the sounds from the command center will not be broadcast live, otherwise the outside world might think that the SLS rocket will explode into a fireball at any moment.

Actually, that's not the case; its redundant system has played a full role.

The rocket's structural design incorporates a large safety margin, employing a multi-redundancy architecture to ensure its normal operation.

For example, the control system of the super-safe manned rocket Long March 2F adopts a "triple redundancy" design, with two out of three core control instruments being redundant.

Even if a circuit board fails, the system can still continue to operate through a "majority vote" mechanism.

The Long March 2F rocket extensively uses this architecture, so its key parameters have a 20% safety margin to ensure that it can still operate safely under extreme conditions.

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is even more impressive.

As a commercial rocket developed by a commercial space company, it was designed with low cost in mind from the beginning. Therefore, some equipment did not use expensive "space-grade" standards but used commercial standards.

The reason why rocket equipment has the "aerospace grade" standard is because the working environment is too harsh, so only equipment with extremely high standards can work properly.

To prevent them from failing, rockets like the Long March 2F have "triple redundancy".

The equipment used in the Falcon 9 rocket does not meet such high standards, so it can only be equipped with "six redundancies" or even "nine redundancies".

Even if ordinary devices are prone to failure in extreme working environments, having five or eight backups means that even if one fails, the system can still last until the overall work is finished.

After all, the rocket's working time is only a few minutes, so it can be handled quickly, and it also saves money.

Because for the same function, equipment for a spacecraft costs millions, while ordinary commercial equipment only costs tens of thousands.

but……

No matter how cheap it is, every component and system of the rocket undergoes rigorous testing and verification before takeoff to ensure its performance and reliability.

Ultimately, no matter how commercially viable they are, the reason they are chosen, besides price, is because they do meet the basic requirements.

The redundancy system of the early Falcon 9 rockets was indeed very powerful, but as the rockets became more and more advanced, its redundancy system gradually became a backup, and was gradually reduced from "six redundancies" to "three redundancies" for the national team rockets.

In order to further save costs, it was even changed to "double redundancy".

Basically, there haven't been any problems.

It's quite rare to see a rocket like the SLS that attacks redundant systems directly from the outset.

Fortunately, the SLS rocket's redundancy system was strong enough to withstand the test.

Everyone in the command center breathed a sigh of relief.

Live streaming is something that laymen watch for entertainment, while experts understand the intricacies.

When the camera cuts to the aerospace command center, laymen see only professionalism in the flashy data displayed on the big screen and the engineers whispering and working busily.

But for insiders, especially those who have worked in aerospace command centers, this scene is quite interesting.

For example, the young engineers who watched the SLS rocket live with Lu Yun.

"It seems the SLS rocket has quite a few minor issues. The way they're whispering to each other is enough to make it more noisy than a market if they turned on the sound."

"Yes, this American is desperate, otherwise he wouldn't be so reckless."

"That makes sense. Even though there are redundant systems, no one knows whether those systems will be compromised."

"Haha, it's quite an honor to say that. Our heavy Long March 10 has just successfully completed joint training, yet it has put so much pressure on the Americans."

"We in the aerospace industry believe in going into space without problems. But the SLS rocket was launched with problems in mind, and all our hopes are pinned on the redundant system. It seems the Americans are really in a hurry."

"Look at President Lu's side, that's what you call sitting calmly on the sidelines."

"I now feel that we can really achieve a manned lunar landing before the United States this century, and this time there will be a super high-definition live broadcast, which is very advantageous for us."

"Yes, I never dared to imagine it before. I never thought this day would come so soon, and that it would even come before the Americans."

"I didn't expect the US to decline so quickly. If it were during the last space race, or at the beginning of the century, we wouldn't have had a chance of winning this time."

"Indeed, the goal set by the United States at the beginning of the century was to return to the moon at the latest two years ago, and to build a lunar base."

"Hey, these targets are ours now."

"That's really something Americans do with PowerPoint presentations; let's do it ourselves."

"It's hard to say for sure. The SLS made its maiden flight on time this time. There should be enough time to fix the problems before the second flight. If it's even a tiny bit faster than us in the future, that would be a problem."

"Hey, do you guys remember what President Lu said before about the possible problems with it?"

"The sensor problem we mentioned earlier has come true, and there are still boosters coming up..."

"Holy crap, the SLS booster exploded!"

"what?"

Seeing this, Lu Yun's lips curled up slightly.

now it's right.

The world line did change, but it returned in other ways.

However, the SLS rocket's booster did not explode directly; only the booster nozzle fell off.

This is not actually a problem with the SLS rocket's solid rocket booster, but rather a problem with the solid rocket booster of another American rocket.

And it's not a problem specific to this year.

That was the "Vulcan-Centaur Rocket," which had also been delayed for many years.

It was originally planned to make its maiden flight two years ago, and also send a commercial space probe, but both were delayed.

In its previous life, it made its maiden flight in 2004. However, like the maiden flight of the SLS rocket, its maiden flight was not 100% smooth. The biggest problem was that after flying for several tens of seconds, the solid rocket booster, which was already producing a lot of smoke, suddenly exploded, followed by a red-hot ring flying out.

(Net map)
That ring is none other than the solid propellant nozzle of the "Vulcan-Centaur Rocket".

Fortunately, the solid rocket motor did not explode directly; only the nozzle fell off, and not initially, so the rocket only lost 2% of its thrust.

After adjustments to the thrust and direction of the core stage rocket, the rocket eventually delivered the payload to its intended orbit.

As for the explosion of the SLS rocket's solid rocket booster, that's another issue.

The initial version of the SLS rocket used a booster with no major issues. It was based on 30 years of knowledge and experience, drawing inspiration from the Space Shuttle's boosters and incorporating the latest technologies for improvement.

The most obvious change is that the space shuttle's four-stage booster stack has been changed to five stages, resulting in improved performance.

The five-stage solid rocket booster is 53.9 meters long and 3.66 meters in diameter. It uses polybutadiene-acrylonitrile as propellant, and each booster weighs 725.7 tons and can generate approximately 1633 tons of thrust. At liftoff, two boosters can provide 75% of the thrust.

Furthermore, both boosters have a vector control system, enabling them to oscillate.

However, this still cannot meet the requirements of the SLS rocket's manned lunar landing mission, and further improvements are needed.

NASA hopes to increase the SLS rocket's lunar transfer orbit payload capacity from 42 tons to 47 tons, or even higher.

That was 2023 or 2024. At that time, everyone knew that the Americans would not be able to return to the moon until 2027 or 2028.

The SLS rocket completed its maiden flight in 2002, but a host of problems were discovered during the maiden flight, which caused the second flight to be delayed.

In 2002 or 2003, NASA intended to use the testing of a new solid rocket booster to prove to the outside world that "American-made heavy-lift rockets are still competitive."

The result was a resounding "technical Waterloo".

Its new solid rocket booster exploded right from the nozzle during testing.

Unlike the "Volcano-Centaur Rocket" solid booster nozzle which burned through and broke apart a year later, this one exploded directly.

The entire booster exploded as a result.

Then, in 2005, it exploded again.

The most important thing is that the two explosions occurred in the same location, indicating the same problem!
At the time, it left space enthusiasts speechless.

The SLS project was originally initiated in 2006, with the initial plan to complete the maiden flight in 2017. However, it was delayed until 2022 before the unmanned lunar orbiter "Artemis 1" SLS rocket made its maiden flight.

As for the subsequent missions 2 and 3, which were repeatedly delayed and had their budgets continuously increased, and then the booster explosion, Congress's patience with NASA is probably running out.

When Trump took the stage for the second time, his patience had truly run out. He clamored to scrap the SLS rocket and cut the space budget.

Of course, Ma Yilong's instigation played a part in this.

After all, when Trump made his second appearance, Tim also rose to prominence and took charge of the "Efficiency Department".

Eliminate all inefficient tasks!
It would be best to package all the manned lunar landing missions into your own 9-meter diameter rocket.

Although his large rocket also exploded every time it was tested.

But who could blame him when he was the "King of One-Word Ranking"?

However, his reign as "King of the Country" was short-lived, as he fell out with Trump.

As expected, the fates of kings with different surnames were mostly not good...

Fortunately, President Ma is the only face of the American aerospace industry, so there shouldn't be any major issues in the short term.

However, later, when shootings of high-ranking officials became a common occurrence in American society, it greatly frightened Old Ma. At that time, he stopped mingling with netizens and instead firmly stood on the opposite side of them.

Originally, the SLS rocket had its maiden flight a few months earlier than planned in this life, and Lu Yun thought that the timeline would change accordingly. However, the timeline affected the SLS rocket in a complicated way.

There might still be some interesting drama to watch in the next few years of this life.

However, the second flight of the SLS rocket should not be delayed until 2026, since in the previous generation, China planned to achieve a manned lunar landing around 2030.

This life, however, was moved forward to 26 years ago.

This is still the official conservative estimate.

In that case, the US will definitely increase its investment in the Artemis project and accelerate its progress.

Of course, it's also possible to "make mistakes in the rush" and cause even bigger trouble a few years in advance.

Anyway, Lu Yun is quite optimistic about it...

This will cause even bigger trouble!

Now, the fact that the SLS rocket didn't explode into a giant firework does make it less exciting.

Some viewers were not very satisfied.

"It scared me. I thought the SLS rocket was going to explode."

"Haha, if this explodes, the Americans will definitely go crazy and revert to the Apollo model of the last century to fight us."

"I'm not afraid, after all, defeating a strong person is more exciting to me than defeating a weak one!"

"While we're watching the show here, the people in NASA's command center are probably sweating bullets..."

Indeed it is.

When they saw the solid rocket booster explode, they almost exploded along with the rocket.

Fortunately, the rocket didn't explode, and their hearts didn't explode either.

After they learned that the solid rocket propulsion nozzle had burned through and fallen off, they quickly calculated the rocket's thrust and deflection angle, and then stabilized the rocket's direction and speed to continue flying into space.

The solid propellant quickly separated, and the danger was averted.

Only after the rocket's upper stage successfully placed the Orion spacecraft into its lunar transfer orbit did the people in the command center finally breathe a sigh of relief.

"The maiden flight of the SLS rocket has been completed. Although there were some minor flaws, they did not prevent the mission from being a success."

"We will complete the repairs of those minor flaws before the second flight, so there is still relatively plenty of time."

"Now it's up to the Orion spacecraft."

There was no time to discuss the rocket's problems; next up was the Orion spacecraft.

"Spaceship power distribution anomaly!"

"Gift crab!"

"Redundancy system activated, power distribution restored to normal!"

"Great!"

"Quickly check what's causing the abnormal power distribution. If it's a software issue, send a command to update the software to prevent this from happening again..."

What they didn't know was that there were 23 more instances of abnormal power distribution data that followed.

As a result, some functions cannot be executed according to instructions.

If a power outage or loss of redundancy occurs during a mission, it could threaten the spacecraft's propulsion and pressurization systems.

This is crucial for the astronauts' survival.

Engineers today are unaware of this, and outsiders are even less aware.

After all, the live broadcast ended shortly after the SLS rocket's upper stage separated from Orion, and people are now discussing the solid rocket booster nozzle burning through and separating a few dozen seconds after the SLS rocket's liftoff.

They all lamented the perilous situation at the time.

And what happened to the space technology of the former space race winner and world hegemon, the United States?

If it weren't for Elon Musk's SpaceX aerospace company saving face for the US, there would definitely be far more people doubting the conspiracy theory behind the US manned moon landing in the last century!
Lu Yun, however, didn't have the time or inclination for that. After watching the live stream, he left the aerospace city and went to the Blue Star Aerospace Company factory in Binhai City.

Because in just a few days, the core module of the space hotel he'll be using for his wedding will be launched.

According to the plan, Bluestar Aerospace will launch four space hotel modules to form a space hotel within about six months.

(End of this chapter)