On April 27, in the light rain, the Storm was carefully fixed vertically to the central core stage of the Xinyuan-2A rocket with the assistance of a crane.

Since both the rocket and the space shuttle were too large to be sent into the final assembly building, the process could only be made public, and the combustion chambers of the three A100 engines were finally filmed.

Compared with the combustion chamber of a conventional rocket engine, the combustion chamber of the A100 is also a huge bell-shaped nozzle, but the surface has a lot of bumps that look rough, and the tail is a large bulge compared to the H2M, and it seems that there is a movable structure.

"The A100 studio generates a huge amount of heat build-up, most of which can be concentrated on the nozzle, which has a lot of fine pipes on the outer wall of the nozzle, and liquid hydrogen flows through it to take away the heat while working.

The other part of the heat can only be exposed to the vacuum heat dissipation through the rear unfolding heat sink, which has an unfolded area of more than 100 square meters on six sides, so you have to be careful to prevent collisions when docking with the space station. ”

As the chief designer of the Storm's airframe, Seryov gave a shallow introduction to the layout of the nuclear part to several experts from the Academy of Sciences, who nodded frequently.

Now they are under the tower, obscured by the shadow of the combination.

All three A100 engines have withstood long test tests, and the radiation is concentrated in the back of the nozzle, so it is still safe inside the shuttle when working.

When returning to the atmosphere, it is natural to use gliding landing without starting the engine, but the landing of the Storm still requires special caution.

The three nozzles also pick up radiation from the core reactor after working in space, and can diffuse most of the radiation by releasing stored liquid nitrogen before entering the atmosphere, leaving a small amount just below the threshold.

However, it is still high compared to normal standards, so the landing site of the Storm will be a semi-enclosed airfield on the grassland, and the runway will be foamed immediately after landing, and at the same time, the ground crew wearing chemical protective suits will put protective covers on the three combustion chambers, and then disinfect the entire space shuttle, and the astronauts will be allowed to come out after at least an hour.

After all, the radiation value is against the upper limit of the human tolerance range, and it is irresponsible to go directly through the ordinary landing process, so it is almost very low after the decontamination.

Therefore, the landing maintenance process of H2N is more troublesome, but everyone thinks it is completely acceptable, after all, its performance is too advanced, and it is worth this treatment.

Many nuclear scientists at the Academy of Sciences are constantly working on new topics around the A100 and are curious about its technical mysteries.

It's just that the A100 was independently developed by Xinyuan, so it can only rely on guesswork to analyze the internal structure.

Lin Ju tried to get them to sign the technical consultant contract, but unfortunately it didn't work, otherwise there must be a few A-level among so many old people, many of whom were giants who came from the era of poverty and whiteness, and they haven't left their jobs now.

Seryov and Cheng Nankai are both in Qiongzhou, and they must always keep an eye on the Storm, which has three reactors in operation!

The reactor was designed to never change fuel for life, and the entire aircraft and reactor were scrapped at the same time, and would not stop once they started.

At this time, the three reactors are running at low power, and a cooling mechanism standing next to the launch pad is connected to the interior of the space shuttle, which draws heat from the outside, and the miniature evaporation tower is emitting billowing white smoke.

This is also the reason why the outside world immediately confirmed that the Storm was a nuclear engine on it, and now the international community is staring at the performance of the first nuclear-powered vehicle.

"The A100 has been a success, but what about your other project? The plug combined engine is also fast, right? ”

The 91-year-old academician Yu still speaks clearly, and he has now retired from the front line as a consultant, because the emergence of the A100 has begun to carry out research on nuclear thermal propulsion.

The plug combined engine he was referring to was the NPAE, the combined thermal-ionization-gas tip propulsion engine for sodium-cooled reactors, and the Academy of Sciences knew about the existence of this project.

The NPAE and A100 belong to two tracks, and the technical routes are not the same, and at first glance they are designed for SSTO single-stage orbit.

Now that the A100 has been manufactured, I'm afraid the NPAE is not far away, right?

Seryov: "The plug section is being tested, the SFR experimental reactor is almost built, and it will be put into trial operation soon. ”

The progress of NPAE does not need to be concealed from the Academy of Sciences, after all, the raw material input required for the construction of the reactor is through the Chinese nuclear power, and the progress can be known by the output of raw materials.

A fixed 2,000MW fast neutron sodium-cooled reactor will be built at the Tsingshan site as a validation before the first NPAE prototype can begin.

It stands to reason that there is no need for this verification process to be replicated at the base, but after the successful manufacture of the A100, the base has a new idea, and plans to make some improvements to the NPAE, which can reduce the mass from 3.6 tons to 3 tons and increase the thrust to 20 tons, improving the performance by about 10%.

Cheng Nankai speculated that the A100 and NPAE are not from the same world line, and they can just complement each other's technologies, which is a great thing.

The installation of the improved NPAE on the XN90 spacecraft can increase the maximum take-off mass of the spacecraft (Earth) to about 100 tons, and the payload mass to 25 tons, an increase of 25%.

Academician Yu shifted his gaze back to the Storm, thinking about what it would look like after changing it to NPAE.

NPAE can be launched in the atmosphere, and the thrust of two A100s is greater than that of three A100s, which means that if the three A100s of the Storm are replaced by two NPAEs, it can be completely launched on the ground and fly all the way to space, and realize the single-stage orbit with an effective load factor of more than 50%.

Originally, this idea was completely impossible in the eyes of the Academy of Sciences, but the A100 was successful, and the NPAE is still unknown.

Price aside, the two nuclear engines, one for deep space navigation and the other for planetary landings, are probably enough for the entire 21st century of space exploration.

……

April 28, the day before the launch of Storm.

On the runway of the base, the yellow-green C832 was pulled onto the runway by a tractor, and one side of the runway was covered with dense crowds.

About half of them are people on the base, and the other half are representatives from all parts of the supply chain, government at all levels, and people from the military and space agencies.

It was still early in the morning, about two hours before the estimated time of the first flight at 9:37.

At 9:37 a.m. on September 26, 1980, the Y-10 completed its first flight at the Capital Airport, and 27 years later, the second nationally produced trunk airliner will fly into the sky at the same time.

At this time, the weather in Rongcheng has begun to warm up, and the morning feels cool rather than cold, but the food truck in the base canteen still provides hot soy milk and milk.

Due to the espionage incident shortly after the incident, all those who watched the first flight were not allowed to leave the runway without permission and had to wait here, but fortunately no one complained.

In the crowd, Zhou Lizhong, the director of Factory 132, was telling the details of C832 with the researchers of Shengjing Air Technology Institute.

“…… You know, I got into the cockpit of the C832 a few days ago, and the good guys are completely different from the Boeing series, and they brought the space shuttle set up! ”

"Space shuttle?"

"Yes, I have been on the steadfast to visit, the internal layout is almost exactly the same, I heard that even the flight control is transplanted, can complete a fully automatic landing, the layout is the same as driving a space shuttle, big and comfortable, and highly intelligent."

"I haven't been to the space shuttle yet, so you say that I'll go in and have a look as soon as possible, we have produced a tail fin, and the tail requirements of the C832 are really not low, higher than the An 1250.

The progress of Xinyuan's fourth An-1250 is a little slow, it should be other parts to urge, and the tail wing we built has not been shipped away for two months. ”

Zhou Lizhong: "Taller than an 1250?" Impossible, right? ”

"The strength requirements are not so high, but the treatment process is a big improvement, after all, it is a frequent passenger aircraft, and it has to be greatly reduced, and a new surface treatment process is required."

Zhou Lizhong: "I really don't know why an aerospace company has such a strong aviation technology attainment. ”

"That's what it is, snow...... Ahem, I'll go get a cup of soy milk first. ”

(End of chapter)