This star is going to the moon

Chapter 540 A large rocket launch must use a deflector! A super-sized firework!
Thanks to Elon Musk's extensive global promotion, the live broadcast of the Super Falcon rocket's maiden flight was a huge success.

There are two cameras in the live stream. One camera shows the rocket being fueled on the launch pad, and the cryogenic fuel is turning the original gray stainless steel rocket into a layer of white frost.

On the other side is the camera of the command center, where Ma Yilong is sitting in the center.

Old Ma seems really confident!

To be fair, Lao Ma's team has some pretty impressive technical skills. If Lu Shen is the shining light of China's aerospace industry, then Lao Ma is the shining light of America's.

That's true. After all, the Falcon 9, the first reusable rocket in human history, was developed under the leadership of Old Ma, and Lu Yun's Wan Hu rocket even drew inspiration from it.

That's all in the past. If the initial reusable rockets marked a new era, then the Super Falcon was revolutionary!

[Yes, this rocket is spectacular. Even considering all the super rockets in history, its 120-meter height is the tallest.]

[A new world record!]

[It's the largest rocket in history, with a liftoff thrust of approximately 7500 tons—quite powerful.]

Indeed, the Saturn V had a larger diameter, but unfortunately, it wasn't larger throughout; the diameter of the three-stage rocket was quickly reduced to six meters.

[The most powerful rocket previously was the unsuccessful N-1 rocket, built by Benjamin Butler, with a thrust of over 4600 tons. The Saturn V was only around 3500 tons, and the SLS, which just had its maiden flight a few months ago, barely exceeded 4100 tons.]

Wow, that's an incredible amount of thrust! That definitely makes it the strongest in the world.

The US space program is truly impressive; they've managed to build such an amazing rocket.

[After all, we've accumulated decades of experience, and we're the only country to have successfully put a super rocket into service. It's normal for us to build an even more impressive super rocket now.]

So you're saying you're really optimistic about the Super Falcon's maiden flight?

[Having precedents doesn't guarantee success. The SLS rocket, that old pigeon, was more like a traditional super rocket, but it served as a negative example.]

That's true, the Super Falcon's maiden flight countdown is down to five minutes, just watch...

I can't wait...

This is indeed something to look forward to.

The Super Falcon rocket is truly amazing!
Its first stage is called the "super heavy booster," which is about 70 meters high and can be loaded with about 3200 tons of propellant, with a total weight of about 3600 tons.

Using 33 Raptor liquid oxygen methane engines with a sea-level thrust of 230 tons, the total takeoff thrust reaches an astonishing 7590 tons!
Its second-stage rocket is actually a special "spaceship", about 50 meters high, capable of carrying 1200 tons of propellant, with a total weight of about 1300 tons.

使用3台海平面推力230吨的“猛禽”液氧甲烷发动机和3台真空推力258吨的真空版“猛禽”，推力1250吨左右。

In addition, the Super Falcon omits the fairing and has a retractable payload bay similar to that of the Space Shuttle in the upper part of the second stage rocket, thus enabling it to carry out payload descent.

Elon Musk publicly stated that the "Super Falcon" has a low-Earth orbit payload capacity of no less than 100 tons in a fully recovered state.

What he didn't say was that this data was for "future plans".

Lu Yun knew perfectly well that the Super Falcon rocket standing on the launch pad looked impressive, but Ma Yilong had actually made many compromises.

He added a lot of safety redundancy to the rocket to ensure a successful maiden flight, which resulted in the rocket's weight being extremely high.

Therefore, with a takeoff mass of approximately 5000 tons and a takeoff thrust of approximately 7500 tons, its theoretical recovery capacity is only 15 tons.

In his previous life, Elon Musk graded the technology of his 9-meter diameter rocket.

The first model was called V1. Several of these rockets were launched for testing, but only to test takeoff and recovery technology. They did not carry anything, so payload capacity was not a major concern.

The second model is called V2, and several of them have been launched and tested. It is a technological upgrade based on V1 and began to carry simulated payloads for launch tests. With both the first and second stages recovered, the launch capacity reached about 35 tons.

It wasn't until 2006 that testing of the better V3 model began.

The V3 is considered Jack Ma's target rocket, with all technologies upgraded from the V2. Its takeoff thrust is increased to 8000 tons, ensuring a payload capacity of over 100 tons with both first and second stages recoverable. Jack Ma even has a V4 concept, which would increase the rocket's height by 20 meters, raise its takeoff mass to 6000 tons, increase its takeoff thrust to 10000 tons, and achieve a payload capacity of over 200 tons with both first and second stages recoverable.

However, Lu Yun only lived for 26 years in his previous life, and had only heard of the idea but never actually seen it.

Many things have been disrupted in this life. Lu Yun wants to see what new tricks Ma Yilong will come up with.

………………

American Super Falcon launch site.

"One minute countdown."

Elon Musk stared intently at the Super Falcon rocket on the screen.

Because Lu Yun has repeatedly created miracles in first flights, Elon Musk's first flight plan this time is also quite aggressive.

More than a decade ago, when he first flew the Falcon 9 rocket, he only thought about launching it as a disposable rocket, as long as it was successful.

Even after the Falcon 9 rocket was successful, it was used as a disposable rocket for several years, and it was only after more than a dozen rockets were launched that it began to be recovered.

However, because the Looyun rocket has always been able to complete its first recovery at the same time as its maiden flight in recent years, Elon Musk's maiden flight plan for the Super Falcon rocket this time is benchmarked against the Looyun rocket.

According to his maiden flight plan, after the Super Falcon takes off, the first and second stages of the rocket will separate smoothly. Then, the first-stage booster rocket will complete the process of turning around, igniting, and retro-rocketing, just like the first-stage booster of the Falcon 9 rocket.

However, for safety reasons, the first stage of the "Super Falcon" rocket will not return directly to the launch pad. Instead, it will fall to the sea surface not far from the launch site, restart its retro-propulsion, and slowly descend into the sea.

Ma Yilong's plan is both radical and prudent.

He was also afraid that if something went wrong, the launch pad would be blown up.

The second stage of the Super Falcon rocket re-enters the atmosphere after orbiting the Earth for more than half a circle, returning in a manner similar to the Space Shuttle. The heat shield tiles, after withstanding the high temperatures of re-entry, protect the second stage as it glides into the atmosphere and eventually crashes into the sea, completing its verification mission.

Strictly speaking, flying around the Earth for more than half a circle can only be considered a "suborbital flight," not an orbital insertion. This maiden flight was only to more reliably verify the heat protection and reentry performance.

So after the final check showed no problems, Ma Yilong personally pressed the button.

"3, 2, 1, ignition!"

"Boom——"

As more than 30 rocket engines ignited, over 7000 tons of thrust were sprayed directly onto the ground. The enormous impact blasted open the concrete floor beneath the launch pad, sending large amounts of cement, soil, and dust flying into the air.

The massive Super Falcon rocket was very heavy and took several seconds to charge up before taking off.

Inside the command center, a large number of staff members were cheering, but the person watching the key monitoring equipment had a drastic change in expression.

Several monitoring devices were destroyed by flying cement and metal blocks, and the rocket engine that launched also malfunctioned.

The phone kept shutting down!

Across the ocean, Lu Yun pointed to the live stream and said to everyone, "The results are in."

"You should be able to tell that the smoke and dust from the Super Falcon's takeoff are different from the steam clouds from other rockets. That's because its launch pad doesn't have any deflector channels; instead, the jet flames are directly slammed into the concrete ground."

"This concrete floor couldn't withstand such a violent impact, so those damaged engines were destroyed by the concrete blocks."

"Just wait and see, the rocket will be here soon..."

"Boom!!!"

Before Lu Yun could finish speaking, the Super Falcon exploded into a giant firework in mid-air!

(End of this chapter)