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

It’s 2:50 in the morning on July 24th.

The Pioneer space shuttle took off from the Xinyuan Space Launch Center in Qiongzhou. The launch took place at the darkest moment of the day. The tail flame of the liquid oxygen methane engine illuminated the clouds and even obscured the brilliance of the moon. Go down.

The reason why we chose to launch at this time is because the weather has been extremely bad in recent days, and the launch plan is extremely tight:

On July 23, two Xinyuan-3 rockets launched two service modules costing about 1.5 billion and 3.5 billion yuan respectively. The latter is mainly expensive because it is equipped with the most advanced optical telemetry system. The space agency will The entire system of the backup satellite of Practice No. 18 was dismantled and installed, and a series of deep space exploration instruments were inherited, which was extremely expensive.

However, these expensive equipment will play an unimaginable role with the abundant power of the Advance. They have extremely strong monitoring capabilities for both outer space and the earth's environment, and can also provide powerful information support for the crew during deep space navigation.

Both service modules reached the target orbit very accurately, and then Jiuquan and Qiongzhou launched the Glory and Pioneer respectively.

In this mission, in addition to carrying trusses, they each also installed 2 arc-shaped connecting channels for the centrifugal cabin sections. The take-off mass is close to 130 tons. After being sent into low-Earth orbit, they have to rely on their own power to do a lot of work. a while.

The original launch date of both space shuttles was the 26th, but it rained heavily all day on the 23rd, and there were thunderstorm warnings in the following days, so the staff of the launch center made every effort to ensure the night launch.

If the mass of the space shuttle itself is also included, then in three days the two launch sites have launched more than 440 tons of payload into space. The total launch mass of Xinyuan in the past six months has exceeded 2,000 tons, accounting for more than the world's total. 90%, single-handedly surpassing the global aerospace industry.

The country has become numb to such high-frequency large-scale launch missions, so only the special nature of late-night launches is worth mentioning in the official media.

For the people at the launch center, they never imagined that they would have such a busy time, because they were about to clean up the launch site to prepare for the launch of the Storm in a week. She had also arrived in Jiuquan, waiting for the Glory to fly away. Just proceed with the final assembly of the rocket.

Since the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center occupies a small area, the Storm, which is surrounded by a radiation warning isolation zone in a temporary factory building, is very conspicuous.

A group of foreigners passing by took out their cameras and wanted to take pictures, but were stopped by the security guards following them.

It's not that the space shuttle can't be photographed, but the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center has a lot of military payloads, so it's not allowed to take pictures except for the media and some open areas, which happens to be here.

Some disappointed foreigners from the Mediterranean asked He Ruo next to him in relatively proficient Chinese which space shuttle this was. When he heard that it was the nuclear-powered Tempest, he showed an extremely yearning look, and then muttered to himself about his own Hull. When will the Moss make its first flight?

They are a team from Alcatel, China's largest communications operator. They jointly built an 11-ton geostationary communications satellite with several other European countries, and the space agency took over the launch mission.

As for why not use their own Ariana Five? The answer is that ESA is not happy.

The Veneto-1 rocket has entered the prototype test stage. After the Dawn-3 project, the European Space Agency has increased its support, with the goal of allowing this rocket to fly in early 2018.

The VV-1 is stronger than the Ariane V, and because the cost of recovering a single mission is much lower than the latter, the country has sealed one Ariane V in stock and is preparing to use it when there is a military payload demand. When activated, it is essentially intended to be grounded.

Now that most of ESA's funds are on the "Selene" program, satellite launches should be outsourced.

Because the Huayin Treaty had just been signed, Alcatel's satellite order directly ignored the much-anticipated SpecaX Falcon Heavy, which was rejected because the latter had no available rockets for the time being.

However, Xinyuan did not accept the order. Finally, the Eighth Academy proposed to use the CBC configuration of the Long March 6A. The "Long March 12" rocket with a total of 9 YF100K engines can send a 15-ton payload to the synchronous transfer orbit, and the satellite can then Use your own thrusters to accelerate slightly to enter synchronous orbit.

Although this is the first launch of the Long March 12, Alcatel is quite confident in the success rate of China Aerospace.

The foreigner from the Mediterranean chatted with He Zhuang for a while, and the topic never left the moon landing:

"He, according to our country's cooperation plan with you, the astronauts from China will land on the moon during the Dawn-6 mission. Do you know when exactly it will be launched?"

"This... I'm afraid I don't have an accurate answer. To be precise, the Dawning 6 mission will be launched with a new rocket. The Long March 10 will be discontinued after the launch of the Dawn 5. The Dawn 6 will depend on the launch time of the Long March 5. ?”

If the truth is told, the space agency has determined that the lunar ferry and reusable lander will be put into use within half a year, then there is no need to launch an integral lunar landing mission of the spacecraft and lander.

The manufacturing of the Long March 10 rocket body is redundant. After remanufacturing some parts, two Long March 10 rockets can be assembled in the future. That is to say, no new Long March 10 rockets will be manufactured after the Dawning 5 mission is completed.

In the future, if you want to land on the moon, you will either need to take a ferry in low-Earth orbit, or use the Long March 5 rocket that has not yet been commissioned to send the Shuguang spacecraft there. The latter also has a lunar orbit transport capacity of about 25 tons, which is cheap and convenient.

At present, the specific design of the Chang 5 has just been finalized. It will use a 7-meter-diameter rocket body. The first flight can be roughly ahead of the Dawn 5 and become the successor of the Long March 10.

Hearing what He Yun said, Mao Guoguo was a little disappointed. The wait for the new rocket must be long.

"Then I hope it will be earlier than the islanders and Indians. It would be a shame if the astronauts from our country landed on the moon at about the same time as them."

He Ruan: "You mean Asia Star? As far as I know, the island country seems to be withdrawing from this plan.

After Kishimoto was assassinated, Nakayama Koji took over his position and was already preparing to cancel the H-X rocket. Only Indians were left in the Asia Star project, and it was certainly impossible to continue. "

"Cancelled? Aren't they going to the moon?"

"At least it's impossible to try to use their own power. In fact, even if they persist, it will be difficult to succeed. You don't know much about aerospace. ESA's aerospace technology is much ahead of them."

"Hey, will they take the Artemis spacecraft or your Dawn spacecraft in the future? I vaguely remember that they had a strong desire to join the Artemis project."

"I don't know..." He Zhuang thought for a while and felt that the possibility of cooperation with the space agency was still relatively small.

"Mr. Adrian, there are actually fewer countries in the world that can pursue the moon than you think."