The launch of the Long March 18 was not precisely located at 6 o'clock, but about 4 minutes earlier, but almost no one missed the launch site.

Unlike land-launched rockets, the movement before the launch of the Long March 18 is too great to attract attention.

Lin Ju didn't move his eyes from the beginning of the water injection at the gate of the launch box B area, and the desperate water injection that was completely released caused the water level in the sea around the launch box to drop sharply, and the water flow driven by the water level difference rolled to form a strange wave.

Of course, this is all a video signal from the buoy outside the launch area, and after two or three minutes of the water rushing in at an increasing speed, a huge white cylinder slowly emerges from the mouth of the launch box.

At this time, there was almost no sound in the video, but just 6 seconds later, Lin Ju felt a muffled sound of "dong dong" coming from under the 17,000-ton hull of Yuanwang 7, like a whale's tail slapping the sea, which was the sound transmitted from the water first.

Immediately, an astonishing amount of water mist began to pour out from the mouth of the launch box with the rocket, which was the water vapor that had been vaporized by the engine at high temperature, which gathered in the confined space and pushed up desperately, continuing to accelerate the rocket's ascent speed.

For about 10 seconds, the water vapor continued to accelerate upwards and then fell in all directions at a certain height, forming a beautiful small mushroom cloud.

But that didn't hide the Long March 18's erect posture of more than 200 meters, and the Jiuzhang on top of it easily appeared in the sky through the mushroom cloud, which also meant that the bottom of the rocket was almost out of the water.

Each of the four solid boosters can produce more than 2,800 tons of thrust, and the dazzling bright light shoots out in all directions where the sea surface comes into contact with the air, replacing the sun as the sunrise in the early morning of Qiongzhou.

Yu Ziming, who was also on the edge of the observation area, opened his mouth slightly, and it was completely unclear whether it was an explosion or a normal launch.

The surging thrust of 22,000 tons acted mercilessly on the sea level, causing more sea water to be vaporized and raised, and the water vapor stretched and expanded in a columnar shape dozens of times more spectacular than just now, even from ten kilometers away, it was extremely amazing, as if reaching the sky.

The small sun, which is composed of 39 liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen engines and 4 solid rocket engines, rises nearly three times faster than conventional rockets, and has completely displayed and illuminated the surrounding sky dome for more than ten kilometers in a few clicks.

At this time, nearly 30 seconds had passed since the launch, and Yu Ziming saw that the surface had stirred up dense ripples of seawater, and suddenly reacted and opened his mouth widely, and his two palms pressed his ears tightly.

But it was too late, the wind carried the sound of thunder in his face, even if Yu Ziming had already leaned on the hull of the ship, he still felt the air flow blowing through the surface of his skin, and the air rushed straight into his mouth and even blocked his breathing, accompanied by the sound of countless large-caliber heavy guns firing in his ears.

This was a very clear feeling to him, it was a drill with friendly forces shortly after he left the company, and he got lost with the commandos at night and ran near the shelling area, only to catch up with a battalion of 155-mm howitzer swarms to fire there.

Unprepared, he was less than a hundred meters away from the launch position, and the first sound of the rumbling cannon made people lose their hearing, and it took a week for Yu Ziming to slowly recover his hearing, and the tinnitus slowed down for a month before it completely disappeared.

The situation is similar now, and the missile boats weighing several hundred tons are constantly shaking violently at the same time, resonating with 43 rocket engines ten kilometers away.

In the time he was fighting against the air shock wave, the sun in the distance had already flown above the clouds, and the place where the four solid boosters passed formed a column of smoke with a diameter of tens of meters, which was illuminated by the tail flame, like a swimming dragon tumbling with flashing golden light, piercing the sky and heading straight to the top.

……

But inside the command center, people have just experienced the most thrilling 1 minute.

"Dongfeng, optical, telemetry signals are normal."

"Yuanwang-4, the altitude is measured at 26 kilometers, and the ascent rate is abnormal."

"Yuanwang 7, the altitude is measured at 27 kilometers, and the ascent rate is abnormal."

"The throttle valve is adjusted independently, and the core level throttles by 65%!"

"Throttle by 75% and start turning to correction!"

"Throttle 85%, end the steering correction!"

A series of broadcasts sounded one after another almost without delay, and Academician She immediately felt a little dizzy in his head, he only knew that these were inconsistent with expectations, and something happened to the rocket.

But the signal was not lost, and the huge rocket was not seen in the ground tracking screen suddenly exploding, it continued to rise like that, and had begun to accelerate in the direction of the Earth's rotation.

When he came back to his senses, Seryov didn't know when he was standing next to him, staring coldly at the barrage of messages flashing on the big screen.

Those were the data sent back by the rocket's flight computer, which he thought was much more useful than manual broadcasting.

"A little problem."

There was no emotional fluctuation in his voice, but it made Academician She breathe a sigh of relief, so that he could concentrate on looking at the anomalous log that had been recorded.

The tips just now all refer to one thing: the rise rate is too high, nearly 20% higher than expected.

But this is not because there is an engine failure, it took only 1 second for the rocket flight computer to complete the troubleshooting, and then decisively reduce the thrust.

Because the initial speed is different, the flight computer adjusts the throttle zone of the engine to control the flight trajectory to remain the same, and according to the results sent back, it will roughly leave 2% more fuel for the first stage when it is separated, which is almost 120 tons of fuel, so there must be something wrong.

"Launch box, we undercounted the additional thrust when launching."

Seryov had already thought of the reason and explained in a low voice:

"The rocket is launched from there because the gas accumulation will increase the thrust, and the vaporized seawater can also provide thrust, and the buoyancy action is faster than expected, and it is difficult for our computers to simulate such complex fluid dynamics problems, so the simulation is not accurate in advance.

However, I believe that the flight controller can be adjusted, and this excess fuel is enough for the core stage to work for 5 more seconds after the booster is separated, and it can send more than a dozen tons of payload. ”

"That's it, it's supposed to be."

Academician She nodded, fluid calculations are all based on experience, and errors are expected.

However, what he feels more now is his own sluggishness, perhaps because of the sleepless work for several days, or because he is old, and his reaction speed is not a qualified commander-in-chief.

Seryov was unexpectedly calm compared to him, and this is a good thing.

Such a person should come to the space agency - the engineering management ability he has shown in the past few days is not even inferior to that of Qian Lao, and he should lead a huge collective forward.

Seryov did not know what Academician She was thinking, and still seriously monitored the flight status of the rocket, because the initial speed of launch was not small, and the Long March 18 entered space much faster than ordinary small rockets.

Only 110 seconds after launch, the four solid rocket boosters separated at an altitude of 65 km;

160 seconds after launch, the 39 engines of the first stage of the core were shut down and began to fall from a height of 95 kilometers.

The remaining second stage with the Chapter 9 spacecraft did not need to rotate and accelerate around the low-earth orbit, and directly sprinted towards the moon with all its might.

(End of chapter)