When the first-stage core rocket body after the separation of the two-stage rocket was recaptured by the earth's gravity, the ninety-eight-ton behemoth began to re-enter the atmosphere at a free-fall speed.

In order to successfully recycle and reuse the first-stage core rocket, Dr. Schmitz has made great improvements in the material supplier of the rocket body. In the past, after the first-stage core rocket of the launch vehicle was separated, due to the problem of materials, most of them would burn in the atmosphere, and only some metal wreckage would eventually fall to the ground, which could not be recovered at all.

Since the heavy-duty launch vehicle is to be recycled and reused, the rocket body material of Starry Sky 1 will definitely not be the same as the previous rocket body material. Schmitz used the Falcon 9's rocket body material, which is a high-strength aluminum-lithium alloy.

This alloy is very lightweight, but very strong, especially this alloy is very resistant to high temperatures, enough to allow the rocket body to resist the high temperature caused by the violent friction of the atmosphere.

However, compared to the Falcon 9's only 21 tons of rocket weight, the Star 1 rocket is undoubtedly heavier, although the diameter of the Star 1 first-stage core rocket is twice that of the Falcon 9, but the weight of the 98-ton rocket makes the Star 1 core rocket have stronger strength than the Falcon 9.

The strength of the rocket body can be said to be one of the most important indicators. You can't even guarantee the strength of the rocket body, so how can you talk about recycling and reusing?

The design of Star-1 was based on the Saturn V rocket in the American "Apollo Program", the Energia rocket that he had worked with the former Soviet space experts, and the Falcon series of rockets that he personally designed and developed a few years ago.

Dr. Schmitz combined the advantages of these three rockets, that is, using the rocket body materials of the Falcon series, using the engines and rocket structure layout of the Saturn V rocket and the Energy rocket, so that they borrowed from each other to finally produce this Starry Sky 1 heavy launch vehicle.

The Saturn V heavy launch vehicle has an empty body weight of up to 131 tons, and this type of rocket is a rocket. The maximum lift-off weight exceeded three thousand tons. And the Energy rocket changed. The empty weight of the rocket body of this heavy launch vehicle exceeded 140 tons, and the total weight of the lift-off exceeded 2400 tons! The Vulcan rocket, another larger heavy-lift launch vehicle developed with the Energy rocket, is designed to have a total lift-off weight of a terrifying 4,747 tons!

As early as after accepting Tang's instructions, Dr. Schmitz took it as his mission to develop a recyclable and reusable heavy-lift launch vehicle, and as early as when Dr. Schmitz gave Musk a job. He already has a design scheme for this heavy launch vehicle, but because of financial reasons, this heavy launch vehicle has not been tested.

As a result, after Dr. Schmitz was dug up by Tang Feng, Dr. Schmitz's plan for this heavy rocket that he had prepared for ten years finally came into use, and with the huge financial support provided by Tang Feng, Dr. Schmitz finally spent more than half a year to build this experimental heavy launch vehicle.

The design concept of this rocket is actually very simple, that is, on the premise of ensuring that the launch vehicle has the ability to launch a large-mass rocket. The recyclable first-stage core rocket body is materialized and replaced, so that it can continue to maintain the original strength of the rocket body after returning to the ground.

Now, judging from the launch process of the previous stage, it is clear that Star-1 has met the design requirements. The successful launch of this heavy-lift launch vehicle has made the carrying capacity of this type of rocket enough to rank second in history, second only to the Saturn V heavy-lift launch vehicle of the United States! Of course, if you add the Vulcan launch vehicle that was cut in half, the carrying capacity of Starry Sky 1 can only rank third.

But compared to the Saturn V or the Energy rocket. The cost of Starry Sky One is much lower, thanks to the fact that the technology used today is far ahead of the technology of forty or fifty years ago. Therefore, the cost of Starry Sky 1 will be reduced a lot.

However, since this is an experiment, the launch cost of Starry Sky 1 is actually very high, reaching 90 million US dollars!

Of course, this is undoubtedly much lower than the previous space shuttle launch cost. In fact, the pure launch cost of the space shuttle is about 90 million US dollars. However, because the maintenance of the space shuttle is so expensive, on average, the total cost of each launch of the shuttle is more than $400 million!

As long as Star-1 can be successfully recovered, the launch cost will be reduced by about 40%, and the rocket maintenance will cost much less money than the space shuttle maintenance. Therefore, as long as the Star-1 heavy-lift launch vehicle can be successfully recovered and reused many times, the launch cost will be much lower and lower each time, and finally the design cost of each launch is only 2 million US dollars, which is not necessarily a pipe dream.

Now let's see if this detached first-stage core-stage rocket can successfully land with a soft landing!

Under the monitoring of the high-powered telescope, after the detached core-stage rocket began to fall into the atmosphere, the rocket body began to spark due to the violent friction with the atmosphere. Of course, because the rocket body is made of aluminum-lithium alloy, the heat generated by this degree of friction cannot help this high-strength alloy material that is extremely resistant to high temperatures.

At this time, it is important to control the falling attitude of the arrow body.

Through the high-powered telescope, it can be clearly seen that when the rocket body begins to prepare for rolling, on the side wall of the arrow body, several strong flames suddenly erupt, although this kind of flame is not as strong as the main flame of the main engine, but the huge thrust generated can make the arrow body no longer roll, but maintain a nearly vertical attitude.

It is not easy to keep this vertical attitude in the falling distance of 100 kilometers in the falling distance of the falling arrow, which involves a lot of auxiliary technologies, such as the most advanced side jet technology and gyroscopic balance positioning technology that keeps the arrow body balanced during the falling process, these two technologies are the key technologies to ensure that the arrow body maintains balance in the falling process, because only let the arrow body always maintain a vertical state in the falling process, then when the arrow body is close to the ground, Only then can another reverse stroke jet thrust technology be used to make the rocket body complete the final soft landing!

These technologies were developed by Dr. Schmitz as early as when he was developing the Falcon series of rockets, and these technologies were actually Dr. Schmitz's first creation. Although this experiment is a heavier launch vehicle, with the existence of these technologies, it is also possible to keep the rocket body in a vertical state.

At least during the fall of these tens of seconds, the vertical attitude of the rocket body is maintained very well, and the next thing is to see the key soft landing! (To be continued.) )