Whether it is the launch window or the construction of the Martian spacecraft, it is a relatively long time, and everything just needs to be carried out according to the plan.

Therefore, Tang Feng is not concerned about these two items, Tang Feng is concerned about the "Star One" heavy launch vehicle.

At the beginning, Tang Feng and Benjamin. When Rockefeller engaged in the Star Exploration Company, he spent a lot of money from Elon Brown. Musk's subordinates recruited Dr. Schmitz, and as a well-known expert in the aerospace industry, not long after Dr. Schmitz transferred to the Star Exploration Company, with the support of a large amount of scientific research funds invested by Tang Feng, he successfully developed the "Star One" heavy-lift launch vehicle.

This rocket is not like Musk's "Falcon" rocket, although the "Falcon 9" launch vehicle is the second rocket in the world to complete vertical recovery on land and the first rocket to complete the vertical recovery experiment of the offshore platform, but this is only a medium-sized launch vehicle, whether it is GEO capacity or GTO capacity, it is far from comparable to "Star One".

As the leading carrier rocket of the Star Exploration Company, "Star-1" successfully completed the first land vertical recovery experiment, and was out of control, successively carrying out the launch mission of the assembly of the lunar spacecraft, the launch of the manned landing on the moon, and the launch of the construction of the Mars spacecraft.

As of the beginning of June, the "Starry Sky No. 1" heavy-lift carrier rocket, which was originally used for experiments, has successfully completed 17 launch missions, making great contributions to the Star Exploration Company.

This is the world's first launch vehicle that has been reused more than 10 times, and because it is a heavy-duty launch vehicle, the launch cost of "Starry Sky 1" alone will cost $90 million for each launch. However, because the "Star-1" can be reused, when the second launch occurs, the launch cost of Star-1 is directly reduced to 56 million US dollars. By the time of the fifth launch, the cost of the launch had been reduced to $36 million

Until the seventeenth launch of "Starry Sky 1", the cost of this launch has been reduced to 12 million US dollars, which is definitely the lowest launch cost of a heavy-lift launch vehicle in human history.

And the average cost of these seventeen launches has been lowered to only $22 million, so to speak. The "Xingkong-1" heavy-lift carrier rocket has opened a new page for mankind's space industry.

Because of the reduction in launch costs, ESA, NASA, the Russian Space Agency, the Space Development Agency, the Indian Space Agency and even the Huaxia Space Agency have all expressed interest in entrusting the launch mission to Star Exploration. It can be said that the "Starry Sky No. 1" heavy-lift carrier rocket, which has completed 17 consecutive launch missions, has begun to successfully open up the markets of the world's major space powers for the Star Exploration Company

But at this time, the "Starry Sky One" heavy carrier rocket had an accident, to be exact, during the 17th launch mission.

At 6:05 a.m. ET on June 11, 2018, the Starry Sky One heavy-lift launch vehicle carried the tenth functional compartment of the Mars spacecraft. That is, the $1.28 billion worth of sub-living supplies reserve capsule was successfully launched. After about 108 seconds of flight, the first and second stage rockets successfully separated, and the second stage rocket carried the functional chamber out of the atmosphere and flew towards the predetermined orbit.

In fact, at this time, the entire launch mission has almost been completed by 80%, and the facts have proved that the launch of the "Star One" heavy-lift launch vehicle is indeed very successful, because the functional warehouse worth more than 1.2 billion US dollars. In the end, it was successfully sent into the predetermined orbit and successfully docked with the Martian spacecraft.

However, the first-stage core rocket of the detachable "Starry Sky No. 1" heavy-lift carrier rocket had a major accident during the return process.

Perhaps the "Star-1" heavy-lift launch vehicle has been tested too many times. Anyway, when the first-stage core rocket of the "Starry Sky No. 1" heavy-lift launch vehicle ignited the main recoil engine at an altitude of about 20,000 feet above the ground according to the procedure, about 6 seconds later, the rocket body of the first-stage core-stage rocket actually broke off, resulting in the first failure of the repeated recovery mission of the "Starry Sky No. 1" heavy carrier rocket

No one can figure out what is going on, the attitude of the first-stage core rocket of the "Xingkong No. 1" heavy carrier rocket, which originally fell normally, is very perfect in the air, as long as the main recoil rocket is ignited at the specified altitude and the falling attitude is adjusted according to the procedure. Then this recovery task can be completed perfectly.

But who knew that would happen?

At that time, in the underground command room of the Kennedy Launch Center, everyone saw this unbelievable scene through the real-time screen.

First of all, when the main recoil rocket ignited, the rocket body that was originally falling at a high speed immediately produced an extremely obvious pause, and the huge falling force was offset by the thrust of the more powerful recoil rocket, and at the same time. Sixteen small recoil rockets located on the sidewall of the first-stage core rocket are also sprayed sequentially under the control of the program, so that the fall attitude of the first-stage core rocket is adjusted to a vertical state in just a few seconds.

In fact, when the first-stage core rocket uses inertia to make a parabolic motion above the height of the Kármán line, the sixteen small recoil rockets on the rocket body begin to work when the first-stage and second-stage rockets are separated.

The built-in computer inside the rocket will combine the gyroscope to calculate the flight and descent attitude of the rocket body in a very short time, and issue commands to the small recoil rockets located on the rocket body to control the switches of the sixteen small recoil rockets.

When the first-stage core rocket gets rid of inertia and begins to fall, the rocket body at this time has actually been adjusted, so the rocket body is basically in a vertical state when it falls. Of course, in the process of falling hundreds of kilometers, the rocket body will also be affected by a series of external forces such as the earth's gravitational deflection force, wind force, air resistance, etc., which will cause the rocket body to sway.

Once the main recoil rocket ignites at a specified height, the rocket will quickly reduce the speed of the fall, and with the decrease of the falling speed, some external forces that affect the falling attitude of the rocket body can be reduced to a minimum.

In other words, as long as the main recoil rocket is successfully ignited, then the recovery task of the entire first-stage core rocket has been completed. The most difficult part of the recovery task of the rocket body lies in the adjustment of the falling attitude of the rocket body, after all, the rocket body weighing 98 tons falls at an altitude of more than 100 kilometers, and its falling force is quite terrifying.

Therefore, adjusting the attitude of the rocket body falling at high speed is the most difficult step in the whole recovery process, as long as the falling attitude of the rocket body is adjusted at the specified height, then the next process is basically no difficulty. Otherwise, as long as the rocket body does not reach the falling attitude allowed by the program, the main recoil rocket will not open.

But this time the recovery process was done very well, and the main recoil rocket was successfully opened, but at this time, the rocket body was broken from one-third, as if there was an extremely powerful force that broke the rocket (to be continued). )