December 4, Baikonur Cosmodrome.

On the launch pad in the western launch area, a bizarre rocket has been erected, pointing at the sky over the steppe.

Instead of staying at the command center in Moscow, Micklin, who looked older than last year, watched the upcoming rocket launch not far from the launch pad.

Next to him there were many members of the design bureau, and even the head of the bureau, Borisov, came, who was putting down his binoculars and looking at the old god Miklin:

"Evgeny, is this our first recyclable rocket?"

"At least partially recyclable."

There wasn't much emotion in Micklin's tone, and it seemed that he might not be happy with it.

But Borisov doesn't think so, the Angara S2 is an out-and-out reusable rocket, and the world's first gliding recovery recyclable rocket.

The Angara S2 originated before the War-Yin Treaty Conference, when the RKA had already received a briefing from the space agency to truly determine that they would be working non-stop on the lunar program.

The Zenith booster, which was being prepared for the Hurricane rocket at that time, had already conducted four separate launch-landing tests with three successes, so Borisov demanded that a usable recoverable rocket be created as soon as possible on the basis of it.

In the end, Mikelin chose to use the Angara A1 rocket as the core stage, with two zenith boosters, to create the new Angara S2 rocket.

The Angara series is a family of rockets, the base model uses a 3.6-meter diameter rocket body and an RD191 engine, and the subsequent expansion is to connect different core stages in parallel as boosters, which belongs to the same CBC configuration as the Delta IV.

The Angara A1 design of the bare pole can withstand the strong thrust of the booster, so it was chosen as the core stage of the new recoverable rocket.

After bundling two zenith boosters, the take-off mass of the Angara S2 exceeds 1,100 tons, and the take-off thrust is provided by the RD191 of the core stage and the RD171MV of the booster for a total of 1,690 tons of thrust.

Although the Zenith booster cannot cross the atmosphere, it can provide 720 tons of thrust at a weight of 470 tons, and even if the gliding kit is not small, it can still achieve a load factor of 2.7% for the entire rocket, with a low-earth orbit capacity of 30 tons and a GTO orbital launch capacity of 9.5 tons.

The development process of the Angara S2 is not long, only the booster can be recovered, but the launch price has still plummeted a lot.

The payload for this launch was 11 remote sensing satellites with a total mass of 6.2 tons, and the second stage used an RD0124 engine, which cost 2.5 billion rubles, and the offer was 7.4 billion rubles, or about $120 million.

The cost of the Evergreen Proton M rocket with a GTO capacity of 7.5 tons is 1.4 billion rubles, and the offer is 4.4 billion rubles, or about 71 million dollars.

It seems that the price of the slightly stronger Angara S2 is too expensive, but the cost of the one-time use core, that is, the Angara A1, is only 4 billion rubles, and the remaining two boosters can be reused more than 20 times.

The price of the Angara A1 is also because it has only been developed for a short time, and the future cost will be about 2.5 billion rubles, so that the cost of a single launch can be 2.9 billion rubles, that is, 47 million US dollars.

This price is extremely attractive even now that the competition for recyclable rockets is fierce, and it can be reduced as the number of rockets increases, and it is optimistic that it will eventually reach around $40 million.

Externally, it can undertake various high-orbit heavy-duty satellite launch tasks, and internally, Lucia can also use it with confidence, which can save a lot of launch costs.

For example, the rotating gravity module of the International Space Station, which is expected to be launched only with the Angara A5, can also be launched with the Angara S2, but the launch cost can be reduced by more than half.

In the future, Mikelin also plans to develop a rocket with a smaller capacity on its basis, directly above the "Zenith" booster, with a capacity of less than 10 tons and a launch cost of less than 35 million US dollars, but the attitude problem that needs to be solved has high requirements for computer control, and the development difficulty is greater than that of the bundled Angara S2.

Borisov was extremely satisfied with such a pragmatic plan, anyway, the Federation does not have much launch missions now, and the development of the giant rocket "Hurricane" has now stalled.

The reason for the stagnation is still the required RD0120 engine, and the resumption of production of high-performance hydrogen and oxygen engines is extremely difficult, and it may be delayed at any time.

And in addition to the extremely expensive but apporable lunar mission, Lucia simply cannot afford the "Hurricane", and a smaller rocket can save a lot of money.

"Evgeny, my great designer, you have done a very good job, and we will soon be the third country in the world to master a recyclable rocket."

He tried to comfort Micklin, but the old man only muttered wistfully:

"We're just getting started, but someone is already about to launch the cruiser into space."

Micklin is of course talking about the Long March 18 (Xinyuan-4) rocket, and the media has recently photographed the final packing box being erected and the Jiuzhang spacecraft waiting to be hoisted, indicating that it is about to be launched.

With a launch mass of more than 15,000 tons, it can already be regarded as a cruiser on a warship, and foreign media have given it a very apt nickname "Canglong".

The Long March 18 has been shaking the nerves of astronauts all over the world, almost to the extreme of conventional fuel rockets, and every piece of data is a headache.

Mikrin felt as if space flight was originally a rope hanging from the clouds, and everyone was trying their best to climb and get harder and harder as they went up, but now one guy not only climbed to the top as fast as he could, but also touched the end of the rope and nailed the ceiling of the chemical rocket.

Since then, every astronaut knows that the chemical rocket has come to an end, and it is impossible for latecomers to surpass it, and chemical power is already a sunset technology waiting to be eliminated.

The feeling of being locked in is far more powerful than the rocket itself, and it's hard to see the end of your career still calm.

Mikrin was in this composure now, and it wasn't until he noticed that there was a jubilant crowd in front of him that he looked in the direction of the runway in dismay, it turned out that the Angara S2 had been launched in his trance and separated and recovered, and the two boosters glided and landed like drones, both of which came back with all their tails.

"Launched?"

"Yes, Evgeny, the president will give you a gold star! You are a great designer like Korolev, you changed Lucia Astronautics!

What do you want? Villa and private doctor I will upgrade you to the best, what more do you want, tell me, this is a reward for the results of your work! ”

"I want to take a vacation, not much, 10 days is fine."

"Oh, of course that's fine, do you want to go abroad? I don't recommend you to go to Europe. ”

"No, I want to go to Qiongzhou, it's warm there."

Micklin gave a wistful look:

"And there's the ultimate aesthetics of aerospace."

(End of chapter)