2:50 a.m. on July 24.

The space shuttle Pioneer lifted off from the Xinyuan Space Launch Center in Qiongzhou, during the darkest hour of the day, when the tail flame of the liquid oxygen methane engine illuminated the clouds and obscured even the moon's brilliance.

The reason for the launch at this time is that the weather has been extremely bad in recent days, and the launch schedule is extremely tight:

On July 23, two Xinyuan-3 rockets launched two service modules costing about 1.5 billion and 3.5 billion yuan respectively, the latter is mainly expensive in that it is equipped with the most advanced optical telemetry system, and the space agency dismantles and installs a complete set of systems for the Shi-18 backup satellite, and inherits a series of deep space exploration instruments, which are extremely expensive.

However, these expensive equipment will play an unimaginable role after the abundant power of the Advance, whether it is for outer space or the earth environment, it can also provide strong information support for the crew when traveling in deep space.

Both service modules reached the target orbit very accurately, and then Jiuquan and Qiongzhou respectively hit the Glory and Pioneer.

In this mission, in addition to carrying trusses, they also installed two arc-shaped connecting channels for centrifugal modules, with a take-off mass of nearly 130 tons, and they had to rely on their own power to work for a while after being sent into low earth orbit.

Originally, the launch date of the two space shuttles was on the 26th, but it rained heavily all day on the 23rd, and there were thunderstorm warnings in the next few days, so the staff of the launch center made every effort to ensure this night launch.

If the mass of the space shuttle itself is also included, then in three days, the two launch sites launched more than 440 tons of payloads into space, and the total launch mass of Xinyuan in the first half of the year has exceeded 2,000 tons, accounting for more than 90% of the world's total, and it has single-handedly overwhelmed the global space flight.

China has become numb to such high-frequency large-scale launch missions, and only the particularity of late-night launches is worth mentioning by the official media.

The people at the launch center never imagined that they would have such a busy time, as they were about to clean up the launch site in preparation for the launch of the Storm in a week's time, and she had already arrived in Jiuquan to wait for the Glorious's flight away before the final assembly of the rocket.

Since the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center does not occupy a large area, the Storm Horn surrounded by a radiation warning barrier in the temporary factory building is very conspicuous.

A group of foreigners passing by took out their cameras and wanted to take pictures, but were stopped by the guards who were following.

It's not that the space shuttle can't be photographed, but the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center has a lot of military payloads, so except for the media and some open areas, you can't take pictures, which happens to be here.

Some disappointed Mediterranean foreigners asked the next to him in Chinese which space shuttle this was, and when they heard that it was a nuclear-powered Storm, they showed a very yearning look, and then said to themselves when their Hermes would first fly to Yunyun.

They are the team of Alcatel, the country's largest communications operator, and jointly built an 11-ton geostationary orbit communications satellite with several other European countries, which was picked up by the space agency.

As for why not use their very own Ariana Five? The answer is that ESA is not happy.

The Veneto 1 rocket is already in the prototype testing phase, and ESA has stepped up its support after the Dawning 3 program, with the goal of getting the rocket up and running by early 2018.

VV-1 is stronger than Ariane V, and because the cost of a single mission is much cheaper than the latter, the country has mothballed an Ariane 5 in stock, ready to be used when there is a need for military payloads, essentially planning to ground it.

Now that most of ESA's funding is on the "Selene" program, satellite launches will be outsourced.

Because the Huayin Treaty had just been signed, Alcatel's satellite order directly ignored the long-awaited SpecaX Heavy Falcon, which was rejected by the latter with no available rockets for the time being.

But Xinyuan did not accept the order, and finally the Eighth Academy proposed to use the CBC configuration of the Long March 6A, a total of 9 YF100K engines of the "Long March 12" rocket, which can send 15 tons of payload to the synchronous transfer orbit, and the satellite can enter the synchronous orbit with its own thruster slightly accelerated.

Although this is the first launch of the Long March 12, Alcatel is quite confident in the success rate of Huaguo Aerospace.

The Mediterranean foreigner chatted with He Ruo for a while, and the topic never left the moon landing:

"He, according to our country's cooperation plan with you, the astronauts of the Hip Country will land on the moon in the Dawning 6 mission, do you know when it will be launched?"

"This ...... I'm afraid I don't have an accurate answer, to be precise, the Dawning 6 mission will be launched with a new rocket, and the Long March 10 will be discontinued after the launch of the Dawning 5, and the Dawning 6 will depend on the launch time of the Long March 5? ”

If, to tell the truth, the space agency has already decided that it will put the lunar ferry ship and the repeatable lander into use within six months, then there is no need to launch another spacecraft and lander integrated lunar landing mission.

There is redundancy in the manufacture of the rocket body of the Long March 10 rocket, and after rebuilding some parts, two Long March 10 rockets can be assembled in the future, that is, no new Long March 10 rockets will be made after the completion of the Shuguang 5 mission.

In the future, if you want to land on the moon, you can either take a ferry ship in low-earth orbit or send the Shuguang spacecraft with the Long March 5 rocket that has not yet entered service, which has a monthly orbit capacity of about 25 tons, which is cheap and convenient.

At present, the specific design of the Chang-5 has just been finalized, and it will use a 7-meter-diameter rocket body, which can roughly catch up with the Shuguang 5 and become the successor of the Long March 10.

Hearing He Ruo's statement, the bearded Guoyan was a little disappointed, and the time to wait for the new rocket was definitely not short.

"Then I hope to be earlier than the islanders and Indians, and it would be a shame if the astronauts of the guide country landed on the moon at about the same time as them."

He Ruo: "You mean the Star of Asia?" As far as I know, it seems that the island nation is about to withdraw from this plan.

After Kishimoto's assassination, Hatoji Nakayama took over his position, and he was already ready to cut the H-X rocket, and the Asian Star program was only Indian, and it was certainly impossible to continue. ”

"Cancellation? Aren't they ready to go to the moon? ”

"At least it's impossible to try to use their own strength, in fact, even if they stick to it, it's very difficult to succeed, you don't know much about astronautics, ESA's space technology is much ahead of them."

"He, will they be on Artemis or your Dawn ship? I vaguely remember that they had a strong desire to join the Artemis Project. ”

"I don't know ......" He Ruo thought about it, and felt that the possibility of cooperating with the space agency was still relatively small.

"Mr. Adrian, there are actually fewer countries in the world that can pursue the moon than you think."

(End of chapter)