Seryov's concern was answered after 10 minutes.

Pioneer had to coast for a while and ignite again before it could enter orbit, but the long-overdue reinforcing core stage finally passed through the atmosphere and began to adjust its attitude to enter the recovery process.

Seryov's fears did not materialize, and the rocket's signal showed that everything was normal, indicating that it had not been burned out by the atmosphere, at least.

When the core stage after several decelerations appeared in the magnified picture of the ground camera, the launch center was still startled.

The reinforced core stage of the rocket II was flying for the first time, but the longer duration and higher speed of the scorching made its surface appear to be black as if it had been used at least 10 times or more, and the charred body completely obscured the surface prints.

The launch center was particularly afraid that the delicate grille rudder would be damaged, but fortunately, although it looked jet black, it did not malfunction, and the reinforced core stage was still caught by the recovery tower in the panic of a group of people.

Seryov wiped his cold sweat and said with some fear:

"Maybe the thermal insulation layer of the first stage of the core should be treated the same as the second stage of recycling, although this time it was successful, but I still feel a bit risky, and the wear and tear of a recovery on the rocket body is almost three times that of an ordinary launch."

Lin Ju: "I don't think it's a success if you don't blow up the tower, or burn fewer trees." ”

At this time, the outside world could already see the gray smoke coming from the woods next to the launch station, and it was estimated that Director Huang was directing the fire extinguishing there.

Seryov: "......"

He has not encountered this kind of problem in the alliance, after all, it is not easy to think of fire in the cold and snowy land in the north, and Baikonur is a steppe and the Gobi desert in the territory of Kazakhstan, which is really a blind spot in his knowledge.

……

Beijing, State Guesthouse.

After the launch of Vanguard, Yuri and his entourage flew back to the capital, where they prepared to negotiate the construction of a lunar scientific research station.

However, because the arrival time was in the afternoon, he only dined with the Aviation Development Commission in the evening, and then Yuri was asked a fatal question by the experts of the Aviation Development Commission:

Since Lucia is planning to increase the cooperation project and launch plan of the lunar research station, what kind of rocket is she going to use?

Yuri naturally replied that it was the Yenisei series of super-heavy rockets that RKA was currently planning, but the Aviation Development Commission did not doubt the technical problems of the Yenisei rockets, but asked him euphemistically if Lucia could afford the launch cost of such a one-time rocket.

Although the Long March 10 of the Aviation Development Commission is also a disposable rocket, the space agency can afford to build it, how much it wants, the production speed and funds are enough, and there are also reusable rockets from Xinyuan that can be used.

On the other hand, Lucia, it is difficult to say whether the Yenisei Rocket can guarantee one shot a year.

This is indeed a sharp and unavoidable question, so Director Yuri can only fool around first, deliberately endure not drinking much, and call the two designers who accompanied him to stay up late at night.

Lacchuk and Mikrin didn't feel sleepy at night, listening to Director Yuri's complaints:

"They asked me to see the Space Shuttle Pioneer just to tell me that Lucia was lagging behind in space, so that we could compromise and make concessions!

In their opinion, Lucia no longer has the strength to explore the moon, she is a dispensable object, and she wants to get something else! But 20 years ago, they only got the RD120 materials from us to make the YF100, what a backward thing, but now they are surpassing us in aerospace. ”

Micklin could only remain silent, twenty-five years later, it was already very difficult for Lucy to stop the decline, and now it is very rare to have a little revival momentum, but it can only be said that the neighbor's development is too fast and crazy.

Lacchuk: "But Lucia still has advantages, high-thrust hydrogen-oxygen engines, nuclear propulsion and space nuclear reactors, and we should also have lower production costs. ”

Yuri shook his head: "Now if you want to catch up with the return to the moon, you must take the ticket of the Chinese, cooperation is certain, we have to show our strength, the manned landing is too complicated for the time being, then start with equipment and carrying capacity."

We must have a super-heavy rocket that can be put into service as scheduled and can guarantee a high number of launches, otherwise what is the difference between being empty-handed and Aber? Do we have to spend $10 billion on a ticket like those with checkered heads? ”

Micklin: "The Yenisei rocket had to throw away six RD171MV and one RD180 at a time, which was really difficult to produce and expensive.

However, it is too late to develop reusable rockets like Aramco and China. ”

Yuri: "It's really not possible, let's buy Xinyuan's control system, they even sell ESA, we can buy it." ”

Lacchuk and Miklin glanced at each other, but they didn't expect Yuri to really have such an idea.

Micklin had witnessed the glory of the Alliance's space flight, and he could not accept that Lucia Space, which had once been able to compete with Aramco, had fallen into the need to rely on others in space technology.

After making eye contact with Lacchuk, he finally made up his mind.

"Yuri, we actually have a recyclable giant rocket, and it's very large."

……

On December 2, Yuri's RKA visiting team left Beijing.

The Lucia part of the follow-up lunar research station has not yet been negotiated, but a small pressure from the Aviation Development Commission has also yielded results:

Yuri said that Lucia's future reusable giant rocket will be determined soon, and the construction plan of the lunar research station will be discussed after the specific project is established.

And the internal designation of this reusable giant rocket has been determined: 11K30, Hurricane, or Energy 2.

The Energy 2 (also known as Hurricane) rocket is a two-and-a-half-giant rocket that launched the Soyuz Buran space shuttle, with a take-off mass of 2,200 tons and a low-earth orbit carrying capacity of more than 100 tons, which can send 32 tons of payload to the moon and 27 tons to Mars or Venus.

The core stage is 8 meters in diameter, using 4 RD0120 hydrogen-oxygen engines with a thrust of 190 tons (vacuum) and 4 boosters with a diameter of 3.9 meters, each equipped with an RD170 engine with a thrust of 800 tons.

In the late 80s, the coalition decided that the Energy rocket was too expensive and decided to develop multiplexing technology, which led to the Energy 2 design.

Energy 2 attaches each booster to folding wings, wheels and turbofan engines, and then detached and can land at the airport for recovery in the same way as an airplane.

The core first stage was transformed into a space shuttle type, with a tail and controllable rudder surface, changed from a two-stage stage to a one-stage whole, and sent the load all the way to the orbit, and then entered the atmosphere to glide back and recover.

This solution is extremely feasible, and the technology is not much simpler than vertical recovery, but the problem is that the glide recovery system is very heavy, which can lead to a significant reduction in capacity.

Moreover, the core stage as a whole is equivalent to the first-stage half-orbit mode, which greatly affects the load factor, and if you want to retain the capacity as much as possible, you need a very high design foundation.

Vertical recycling is obviously less dead weight and lighter, however, Lucia has no choice.

(End of chapter)