I ask you to build tractors, but you build rockets?

But it's not over yet.

At 17:00 on the same day, Bingzhou Satellite Launch Center.

The first stage of a CZ-6R2 rocket enters the deceleration process and adjusts its direction to the recovery station.

This is the 11th recovery of the "Yunkai" version of the Long March 6 rocket series. Previously, it had been successfully recovered 8 times and failed 2 times. The latest time it has been successfully recovered 6 times in a row.

Obviously, the condition of Long March 6 has stabilized, and it can basically achieve a high recovery rate, but this time, everyone is as nervous as the first recovery.

Because this Long March 6 does not use support legs to recover, but grille rudder recovery.

R2 refers to the change in recycling methods.

This is paving the way for the future recycling of 6-meter and 11-meter rocket body grilles and rudders. The latter two are not only costly to test but also take too long to prepare.

Although the Long March 6 may be more difficult due to its light weight, it is still much easier to conduct experiments with it.

Up to now, counting the iterations in supercomputing, the "Yunkai" recovery control system has reached the sixth generation, and has simulated grid rudder landings successfully 100 times, so this actual test was conducted.

Compared with the past, the recovery posture of this Long March 6 is more stable. It descends smoothly and evenly at a slight tilt, and approaches the recovery tower with two support frames at an angle.

Then, amid hundreds of expectant eyes, the CZ-6R2 hit the recovery tower accurately without slowing down.

When the hollow arrow body hit the steel, it was instantly broken apart. The remaining fuel escaped and was ignited by the tail flame, ending the recovery mission with a bright flame.

The strong explosion was even heard by nearby villages. Looking up, you can see a bright place appearing in the mountains in the evening.

…

"The Xinyuan-3 rocket's second stage failed to recover for the first time, and cracks were suspected to have appeared in the rocket body."

"The first attempt at the new Long March 6 recovery method failed. The recovery tower was burned by high temperatures, but there was no loss of life."

On August 12, 13, and 14, the Chinese camp’s rocket tests failed three times.

There was a problem with YF77 on Long March 10. Preliminary investigation on Long March 6 found that it was another serious sensor failure, and Xinyuan 3...

Guo Shen, Serev, Androv and other Xinyuan senior executives stared at the wreckage of the second-stage rocket fished out of the sea.

If it fell from a height of more than 200 meters on land, it would definitely have to be picked up. But if it fell at sea, the arrow body was basically intact, but it suffered internal injuries and could no longer be used.

The inspection report has been released. It is not a crack in the rocket body. The problem lies in the pressure relief port of the rocket body's oxidizer tank. This small detail was not handled properly, causing the pressure to continue to increase locally during the engine shutdown process, breaking the heat insulation layer.

This is Xinyuan's first rocket test failure. Although it is not an important issue, it still shows that the system is only technically reliable, and the system engineers who actually produced and designed it are not gods.

But from the outside, especially NACA and a number of space agencies, they all breathed a sigh of relief.

The myth of Xinyuan's 100% success rate has finally been broken, and the space agency has even more bad news. It finally looks like a normal space flight.

Ma Yilong tweeted overnight @Lin Ju expressed regret for his failure in recycling this time, and praised the failure as a "milestone" exploration and a "groundbreaking" step for recyclable rockets.

Rocketdyne also appeared and told the media that the YF77 is not as good as the J2 hydrogen-oxygen engine used in the second stage of the Saturn V half a century ago. It is unreliable and backward in design.

Even JAXA dares to show off its LE9 hydrogen-oxygen engine. After all, the data of YF77 is lower, right?

The domestic response is actually quite good. The online groups that have begun to take over the mainstream of "rationality" do not criticize much. Instead, they criticize Lin Ju's statement: "Although the recycling failed, we have found the reason and obtained complete experimental data." ” Liked like crazy on Weibo.

After all, it cannot be justified that XAP has never failed, and a small failure is nothing.

Even the Long March 10 has not received much pressure from public opinion. Overall, it is still ahead of the SLS, right?

As for the Long March 6...it's not like everyone has never seen a recyclable rocket explode.

In fact, as of August this year, more than 20 recyclable rockets have been exploded around the world, with China owning 7.

These seven rockets come from four private aerospace companies. They tried it themselves before deciding to buy Xinyuan's recovery system solution. Only one company's suborbital rocket succeeded twice because the maximum altitude was only 10 kilometers, and the rest were prepared. All rockets entering orbit failed.

The most outrageous one lost control during recovery and fell directly into the whale sea.

But now they have stopped, and they have successively accepted Xinyuan's mature subsystem sales plan after June.

Because of the Aerospace Development Commission's open attitude towards components, the number of domestic private aerospace companies has now increased to 17, ranging from deep space equipment to rocket manufacturing, and their funds and scale are much larger than those of the original world line.

After all, as long as you have money, you can buy any key components. That is the test of cost control and structural design. How easy is it to enter?

Just in late August, Lanjian Aerospace was preparing to launch the "Qinglong 2" rocket. The diameter of the rocket body is 3.8 meters. The core stage uses 7 K120V engines. The maximum take-off thrust is 875 tons, the take-off mass is 670 tons, and the LEO transport capacity is 27 tons. , with a recycling capacity of 20 tons.

This is almost an enhanced version of Falcon 9, except that the nine Merlin 1D engines are replaced by seven K120V engines with greater thrust. The second stage uses the more advanced Xinyuan 25-ton hydrogen-oxygen engine, which has a particularly high load factor.

Falcon 9’s current external quotation is US$52 million. What about Qinglong 2? Their external quotation is 350 million!

57 million US dollars, but the cost per kilogram is only 76% of Falcon 9.

Compared with the Long March 7, which also uses a 3.35-meter rocket body and has a transport capacity of 20 tons, the Qinglong 2 should be cheaper because it has fewer engines.

Of course, the fact that Qinglong No. 2 can offer such a cheap price is just a publicity stunt and the private capital behind the scenes wants to seize the opportunity.

US$57 million is definitely the lowest price after all aspects are combined. There is a profit, but the profit margin is not too much.

Because the recovery control system is purchased, the engine is purchased, the rocket body requires investment, the secondary engine must be purchased every time it is used, supporting facilities must be purchased, and the launch site must be rented...

But as long as you persist, once you make money and set up your own team, the cost will be reduced a lot. Anyway, Lin Ju feels that a profit margin of around 100% can be achieved with hard work.

Lan Jian is considered to have relatively strong technical strength among the private youths, but there are also those who are not technically strong enough to perform miracles:

Evergrande Aerospace.

Just by listening to the name, you can tell which company invested in it. Although it has nothing technically, it does have sufficient funds.

From rocket body technology to engines, direct purchase of everything currently allowed to be sold by the Aviation Development Commission and design plans are purchased, and factories and personnel are rapidly expanding with abundant funds.

Of course, the traditional BAT Big Three are also on the verge of making a move. More than once, media reports have reported that they intend to enter aerospace.