Super Rich: Starting the game by going back ten years to buy Bitcoin

Chapter 185 Soaring Through the Sky, a 5-ton behemoth Takes Flight

As the U8 turned onto the outer road of Future Aerospace Group, Miao Miao's little face was pressed against the car window.

"Brother! There are so many people! So many people!"

No wonder she made a fuss.

For nearly two kilometers, the road stretching out from the base gate was packed with heads. Tens of thousands of people were crammed together, some holding up their phones, some carrying telephoto lenses, and some holding banners that read "Go Daxia Aerospace!" and "Soaring to the heavens!"

Ji Yanran sat in the passenger seat and glanced out the window.

"This is more extravagant than a New Year's Eve concert."

Li Niannian sat in the back row with her arm around Miaomiao, and couldn't help but look out the window herself. After looking for two seconds, she pulled back and clutched her chest.

"There are way too many people..."

Li Yichen slowed down, and the car slowly approached the gate.

The moment the security guard saw the license plate, he jumped up. The barrier swung open with a "whoosh," and he yelled something at his colleague behind him.

The security personnel on both sides stood at attention, watching the black SUV drive in.

Someone in the crowd outside immediately noticed it.

"Whose car was that? They just let it go?"

"License plate...wait, let me take a picture—"

A middle-aged man wearing glasses took out his phone, searched for a couple of times, and then suddenly looked up.

"Future technology! Li Yichen's car!"

This sentence spread through the crowd faster than a rocket.

"Li Yichen is here?"

"The one that made Thor's batteries?"

"Of course, he's the boss of this base!"

The discussion erupted.

But Li Yichen had already parked his car in the internal parking lot.

As soon as the door opened, Miao Miao was the first to jump down, still carrying her schoolbag, which contained her rocket drawing.

"Brother, hurry, hurry! I want to see the rocket!"

Li Yichen took her hand. "Don't run, you'll fall."

The group walked through the connecting corridor and took the elevator to the fifth floor where the command center was located.

As soon as the elevator doors opened, Liu Ruyan was already standing in the corridor waiting.

She wore a dark blue workwear jacket today, her hair was neatly tied up, and she looked very energetic.

"Mr. Li."

"How is the situation?"

"All systems are green." Liu Ruyan stepped aside to lead him towards the command room, saying as they walked, "All twelve Aurora engines have passed their final self-checks, with thrust deviations within 0.3 per thousand. The integrity of the rocket structure has been confirmed. The flight control program has been uploaded and locked. The satellite is in normal condition and awaits separation."

Li Yichen nodded.

"The rocket's official name is Lingxiao-1, which you chose before," Liu Ruyan added. "The launch window is 10:00 AM sharp."

What is the carrying capacity limit?

"The theoretical value is 1,050 tons. The actual load this time is 50 tons, leaving a huge redundancy."

Li Yichen didn't stop walking; his mind was already calculating. A carrying capacity of one thousand tons... the core module of the space station only weighs about twenty tons. If this capacity were fully utilized, fifty core modules could be sent into space at once.

"That's enough," he said.

Liu Ruyan walked behind him and heard Li Yichen's words. Her lips moved, but she didn't reply.

enough.

With a carrying capacity of one thousand tons, it is the world's first and unprecedented.

enough.

She followed this man for four or five months, but she still occasionally got speechless at his remarks.

The door to the command room was pushed open.

A giant floor-to-ceiling window occupies the entire wall, outside which is the azure sea, and the sunlight shines on the water, dazzlingly bright.

One kilometer away, the sea-based launch platform stands amidst the shimmering waves.

Lingxiao-1.

One hundred and five meters. Pure white rocket body. The top is a dark gray fairing, and the bottom has twelve nozzles arranged in a ring, the metal edges reflecting a cold light in the sun.

Miao Miao rushed to the French windows and slapped her little hands against the glass.

"Oh my god!!!"

She turned to Li Yichen and shouted, "Brother! Is that a rocket?! It's so big, so big, so big! Taller than a building!"

Li Niannian followed over and was about to pull Miaomiao away when she herself froze in front of the glass.

That thing stood upright on the sea, exuding an indescribable sense of oppression even from afar. It wasn't a model on TV, nor a photo on a phone screen. It was a real, enormous, silent body of steel.

Ji Yanran stood to the side and watched quietly for more than ten seconds.

"This thing... weighs five thousand tons?" she asked Li Yichen, turning to him.

"Um."

Ji Yanran didn't say anything more and looked out the window again.

Liu Ruyan walked to the control panel and said something into the microphone.

The display screen on the side of the command center lit up, switching to multiple live broadcast feeds.

"The live broadcast has started." Liu Ruyan walked back. "Six camera positions, covering the launch platform, the rocket body, the command center, and the crowd in the observation area."

Li Yichen glanced at the numbers in the corner of the screen.

Number of viewers: 127,843.

It is jumping upwards at a rate of several thousand per second.

The observation area was packed with people. Several faces in the front row caught Li Yichen's attention. They were dressed in suits and ties, with various badges pinned to their chests. Some were senior executives from domestic aerospace companies, while others were representatives from foreign commercial launch companies.

On the south side of the observation area, three men were huddled together by the railing, talking. The tall, blond-haired, blue-eyed man in the middle had his arms crossed and occasionally gestured with his chin towards the launch platform.

The shorter Asian man next to him held a notebook in his hand, his brows furrowed tightly. The middle-aged man in the gray suit on the far right had a more indifferent expression, occasionally interjecting a few words.

The three people were talking very close together, so you couldn't hear them through the screen.

"Switch audio," Li Yichen said without turning his head.

Liu Ruyan paused for a moment, then nodded to the engineer beside her. The engineer made a few adjustments on the control panel, and the signal from the directional microphone on the south side of the observation area was switched to the backup channel in the command room. Noise mixed with the sea breeze came in, and then gradually became clearer.

"...Twelve engines in parallel, takeoff mass of five thousand tons." The blond man's tone was high, and he spoke slowly. "Even if they solve the thrust problem, what about structural rigidity? The vibration modes at takeoff, the coupling resonance between the twelve engines—ground testing alone cannot fully measure all of these."

The Asian man, head down, flipped through his notes, his voice deep and somber: "I've seen the engine specifications they released. A single engine with a sea-level thrust of 500 tons—that's significantly higher than our current highest. The data is either inflated, or—"

"Either they followed a path in materials science that we couldn't," the middle-aged man in the gray suit finally spoke, his English tinged with a German accent. "But I agree with Frank's point. Thrust is one thing, sending five thousand tons smoothly into the air is another. Two-thirds of all large rocket failures in history have been due to flight control and structural issues."

The blond man snorted and leaned against the railing: "Just wait and see. When it's lit, you either go up there, or—"

He didn't finish speaking, but the three of them fell silent for two seconds, their eyes all fixed on the giant white shadow on the sea.

Li Yichen looked away, his expression unremarkable, only his lips twitched slightly.

9:45.

All the engineers in the command center were in position. At more than twenty workstations, dense streams of data were jumping across the screens.

9:50.

On the big screen, the countdown timer jumped to ten minutes.

"Report from all systems." Liu Ruyan's voice was very steady.

"Power is normal!"

"Flight control system functioning normally!"

"Telemetry link is normal!"

"Weather conditions meet launch requirements!"

Reports kept pouring in.

9:59.

Li Yichen stood in front of the control panel, his right hand resting on the protective cover of the red button.

He didn't look at anyone.

My heart was beating half a beat faster than usual.

He had 100% confidence in the Aurora engine. The technology was ingrained in him; he knew every parameter better than anyone else.

But five thousand tons.

One hundred and five meters.

Never before in the history of private spaceflight has anything of this size been sent into space.

He pulled his right hand back, clenched his fist, then released it. Then clenched it again.

All right.

The countdown has just ended in three seconds.

three.

two.

One.

"ignition."

Li Yichen flipped open the protective cover and pressed down with his index finger.

The camera cuts to the launch platform.

Twelve Aurora engines started up simultaneously.

A white-blue trail of flame erupted from the nozzle, instantly engulfing the entire bottom of the platform. The intense heat scorched the sea surface, causing the surrounding seawater to boil and vaporize on a large scale. A white column of steam, hundreds of meters high, roared up and enveloped the entire launch platform in a cloud of vapor.

Looking out from the observation area, a huge white curtain suddenly rose from the sea a kilometer away, obscuring the sky.

I can't see anything.

Only steam.

Steam billowed everywhere.

The cheers of tens of thousands of people in the observation area came to an abrupt halt.

The live stream chat froze for two seconds, then exploded with comments: "It's gone mad???"

"What happened?"

"Can't see it anymore"

"It's all over, it's all over."

No one spoke in the command room.

Miao Miao looked up at Li Yichen, her little hands gripping his trouser leg.

"elder brother……"

Li Yichen didn't look down, but stared at the telemetry data on the screen.

The thrust curve is rising.

The speed is increasing.

The altitude is increasing.

Then--

The top of the steam column cracked.

A silver-white arrow pierced out from the cloud.

Trailing a fiery trail hundreds of meters long, a dazzling blend of white and blue, the five-thousand-ton steel behemoth rose from the ground with visible acceleration, breaking through the steam layer and shooting straight into the sky.

The whole world was silent for two seconds.

Two full seconds.

Then, a deafening roar erupted.

The observation area erupted. Tens of thousands of people simultaneously screamed, cheered, and cried out. Some jumped up, some hugged strangers next to them, and some knelt on the ground, covering their faces with their hands.

The number of viewers in the live stream surpassed 1.5 million at that moment. The chat was completely filled with "Ahhhhh!"

"It was a success!"

I cried.

"Daxia is awesome, even before spaceflight, it's awesome," the message was overwhelmed.

In the corner of the screen, the blond man's mouth was open, and he couldn't close it for a long time.

The Asian colleague next to him dropped his notebook but didn't even bend down to pick it up.

The middle-aged man in the gray suit took a deep breath and raised his hand to take off his glasses.

In the command center, data began to flood in.

"Engine number one thrust is normal!"

"Flight attitude angle deviation of 0.03 degrees!"

"Mach 1.2, continue climbing!"

"Prepare for secondary separation!"

"Telemetry signal is stable!"

Every set of numbers fell precisely within the preset range. There were no deviations, no anomalies, and no surprises.

Li Yichen stood in front of the control panel, the corners of his mouth gradually curving into a smile.

Ling'er's whispers reached my ears through the watch.

"Brother, we did it!"

Eight minutes later.

On the large screen, Lingxiao-1 completed its second-stage separation. The fairing opened, and the fifty-ton intelligent satellite was released into its designated orbit.

Track data is transmitted back.

A perfect fit.

The satellite started autonomously, but it did not have solar panels because it contained five hydrogen fuel cells prepared by Li Yichen, enough to keep the satellite running in space for ten years.

Subsequently, the Lingzi module was activated, and the first set of signals was transmitted back to the ground station.

"Satellite successfully entered orbit! Spirit Son module confirmed activated!"

The command center erupted in cheers once more. Engineers jumped up from their chairs, shook hands, and some had tears in their eyes.

Miao Miao jumped up from the chair and threw herself into Li Yichen's arms.

"Wow, brother, you're amazing!!!"

Li Yichen hugged her.

Then I put her down and looked at the screen again.

The smile faded.

"Now, the real test is about to begin."

Ji Yanran turned to look at him.

Liu Ruyan also turned to look at him.

On the big screen, a red trajectory line is slowly curving.