Super Copy of Great Power Technology

"Now, the Starship rocket of Ruida Aerospace also uses the multi-engine parallel mode. So will the Starship have the same problem as the N-1 rocket, causing the rocket launch to fail? Let me interview Mr. Qiao, the designer of this rocket, and hear what he has to say."

At this point, Du Qingqing adjusted the camera and turned it in a direction, and Qiao Ruida's figure appeared in the live broadcast. Seeing the richest man Qiao Ruida appear on the screen, the live broadcast room suddenly became lively, and dense barrages, accompanied by various large and small gifts, flew all over the screen, covering most of the live broadcast screen.

"What designer Mr. Qiao? If I didn't surf the Internet frequently, I would have been fooled by the anchor. Isn't this our richest man, Mr. Qiao? I remember that he studied chip design in college. When did he become a rocket designer?"

"That's because you are so ignorant. Our classmate Qiao is a versatile person. The first reusable rocket Suzaku launched by Ruida Aerospace was developed under the leadership of Qiao. It is not surprising that he is now involved in the design of a super-heavy-duty carrier rocket."

"When I saw the live broadcast recommendation on Kuaipai's homepage, I thought the anchor was a newly popular internet celebrity. When I clicked into the live broadcast room, my god, even the richest man Qiao Ruida was invited. This female anchor must be an extraordinary person. Is there any old fan who can tell me the identity of this beautiful anchor?"

"Hey, you asked the right question. I have been following the female anchor for more than two years, from Weibo, WeChat, to Kuaipai. Let me, an old fan, tell you about her identity. Her name is Du Qingqing. She is the high school classmate, lover, and partner of the richest man Qiao Ruida. The original Ruida Technology Company was co-founded by her and Qiao Ruida. She can be regarded as a veteran of the Ruida Group. Now Du Qingqing has graduated from university and is studying for a master's degree at Peking University. By the way, she manages a Ruida Charity Foundation, which helps at least 100,000 people every year. She is really a beautiful person with a kind heart and worth paying attention to."

"No wonder the anchor was able to pull the richest man Qiao into the live broadcast room. It turns out that the two are in a relationship. It's a ready-made resource, so why not use it?"

"The anchor has a really good eye. Before Mr. Qiao started his business, he saw his potential and made a decisive move, trapping him in a deep position. Now both of them have become billionaires, but their relationship is still so good. It's really enviable."

“Is this the modern version of the story of Cinderella and Prince Charming?”

"Our anchor is not Cinderella. Her mother is the chairman of a group company, and her father is the founder of a film and television company. Moreover, the anchor is an only child and has the inheritance rights of two companies. With this background, it is an exaggeration to say that she is a princess. She is definitely a rich girl. On the other hand, the richest man Qiao was born in an ordinary family, and all the wealth and companies he owns now are obtained through his own hard work. He is really a ruthless person."

"Stop arguing, our richest man Qiao is going to give a lecture, so listen carefully!"

Qiao Ruida, who suddenly arrived, was still a little confused. Just now, his attention was all on the Star Rocket, and he had no idea what his girlfriend was doing. It was not until Du Qingqing repeated the question that Qiao Ruida suddenly realized it. He sorted out his thoughts and said, "Good afternoon, everyone who is watching the live broadcast. We use a multi-engine parallel power solution on the Star Rocket. It's not that we can't develop a high-thrust engine, but for saving money and safety.

Specifically, the Tianque series of liquid oxygen-methane engines we use on the star rocket is a fairly mature model. It was used as early as the first carrier rocket Suzaku-1 launched by Ruida Aerospace. The subsequent heavy Suzaku rocket also used the Tianque series engine. Today, the Tianque series of liquid oxygen-methane engines have been updated and iterated twice, more than 200 units have been produced, and the number of flights has exceeded 500. There has not been a single serious accident, and minor problems and minor failures rarely occur. It is already a fairly mature rocket engine.

When the Star Rocket design was first finalized, there was debate about which engine to use. If a new high-thrust aerospace engine was to be developed for the Star Rocket, it would take a long time and require huge investment. In the early stages of product development, the production cost would be quite high, and the safety would not be as guaranteed as the old products. Using the Tianque series engine and connecting multiple engines in parallel was the optimal solution that everyone came up with.

As for the problems that everyone is worried about, such as the easy failure and control difficulty of multiple machines in parallel, they can be easily solved under today's technical conditions. The N-1 rocket is a product of the Cold War period of the last century. At that time, chip technology was just starting, and the rocket's ignition and flight control system was quite primitive. It still used the first generation of electronic tube integrated circuits, and its reliability was really worrying. In addition, the processing accuracy of parts during the Cold War was not very high, and many equipment even needed to be knocked with a hammer when assembled. Such parts can barely be used to assemble ordinary equipment such as cars and ships, but it is really hard to describe them when used to assemble aerospace equipment such as launch vehicles and lunar exploration spacecraft. It is a high probability event that there will be problems. If there are no problems, it is an extraordinary performance. For the above reasons, the failure rate of NK series engines has always been very high, and the N-1 rocket has 30 NK-15 engines in parallel in just the first stage, which has increased the already high failure rate by thirty times. In addition to the second and third stage rockets, with more than a dozen engines in parallel, the failure rate will be further pushed up. In addition, the flight control software of that era was too simple and had a very low fault tolerance rate. After the rocket took off, if any engine failed, the rocket would be destroyed and the people on board would die.

Now, decades have passed, and aerospace technology has been updated and iterated countless times, which is reflected in aerospace engines, that is, the Tianque series of engines. Hundreds of them have been produced and flown hundreds of times, and there have been no accidents. The Tianque series of engines has such high reliability that dozens of them are connected in parallel, and the possibility of problems is still not high. In addition, the current flight control program is also very advanced and intelligent. During the flight of the rocket, if one or two engines have problems and stop, the flight control program can automatically adjust the load of the remaining engines, balance the torque, and keep the rocket flying smoothly. Therefore, the star rockets designed and produced by Ruida Aerospace are still quite reliable, at least in terms of safety. "

"As far as I know, Ruida Aerospace already has the medium-sized launch vehicle Suzaku-1 and the heavy-duty launch vehicle Suzaku-Heavy. For general satellite launch missions, the medium-sized and heavy-duty launch vehicles are sufficient. What is your company's positioning for the larger and more powerful rocket?"

"Well, when we developed the Star Rocket, it was mainly to transport manned spacecraft and large cargo into space. It is perfect for building space stations and exploring the moon or Mars."

…Du Qingqing held Qiao Ruida and interviewed him for half an hour until the countdown to the rocket launch was one hour, then she let him go. At this time, some staff members in the No. 2 rocket launch tower had received instructions to leave the launch tower in advance and go to the underground bunker or the flight control center hall. In order to ensure the success of this rocket launch test, Qiao Ruida opened the gold finger, took a picture of the main body of the rocket, and then conducted a comprehensive analysis. Judging from the analysis results, the rocket and the lunar probe are currently in good condition and can be launched at any time. Seeing this analysis result, Qiao Ruida's hanging heart completely relaxed.

An hour passed quickly, and the rocket launch countdown entered the countdown stage. Du Qingqing also stopped explaining and stepped behind the camera, leaving the entire lens to focus on the rocket that was about to be launched.

"10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, ignition!" As the commander counted down, the compressor began to work, and a puff of white smoke blew out from the bottom of the rocket. Then a few sparks came out, instantly igniting the white smoke, and then igniting all the engines of the first stage of the rocket. More than a dozen yellow tail flames sprayed vertically downward and rushed into the cooling water tank under the launch tower. A large amount of fresh water was vaporized by the high-temperature tail flames to form white water vapor, which was directly ejected along the four diversion grooves around it. The sound was deafening, and the scene was quite shocking. The water vapor flew outward for hundreds of meters before gradually dissipating.

Three seconds later, the Star Arrow had accumulated enough power to push the main body off the ground, gradually accelerating and flying high into the sky. In Du Qingqing's live broadcast room, in addition to the image of the Star Arrow taking off, there was also an information bar superimposed, which detailed the Star Arrow's flight speed, flight altitude, flight attitude, and engine working conditions at this time. From the current data, the Star Arrow is in good working condition, and its speed and altitude are still increasing. All the first-stage engines are running at full power, and the high-temperature tail flames they eject gather together and rush out very far.

Such a shocking scene left thousands of netizens in the live broadcast room stunned and exclaiming in amazement.

"Fuck, what did I see? A 20-story-high behemoth flew up so easily, just like a magic trick."

"This is the legendary flying brick with great power. As long as your engine is powerful enough, even a piece of iron can fly into the sky."

"Oh my god, the Star Arrow is so powerful. Such a big thing weighing more than 4,000 tons actually flew up without any effort. Judging from its flying posture, it still has a lot of power left."

"It seems that what Mr. Qiao said is right. With the advancement of technology, there is no technical problem in using multiple engines in parallel to power rockets."

13 seconds after the rocket took off, the commander issued a new instruction again, "procedure turn."

The rocket's flight control system responded immediately and adjusted the power distribution of some engines. The flight direction of the rocket tilted and flew southeast.

Du Qingqing's explanation continued, "Everyone has heard the instruction just now, the programmed turn, what does this mean? Normally, the rocket will enter the programmed turn about 10 seconds after vertical takeoff. The time to start the programmed turn varies for different rockets, different payloads, and different launch locations, but the programmed turn is a process that must be experienced after the rocket is launched. At this time, the rocket begins to enter the stage of tilted flight, and the first and second stages of the rocket will not separate until it leaves the atmosphere. After leaving the atmosphere, the second and third stages of the rocket will separate and finally send the payload into the predetermined orbit. In other words, most of the rocket is flying in a turning manner.

The reason why the rocket flies vertically after ignition is that it can make the rocket leave the atmosphere faster and reduce fuel consumption to a certain extent. So why doesn't the rocket continue to fly vertically but turn? This is related to the predetermined orbit of the payload. The predetermined orbits of the payloads carried on the rocket generally need to fly around the earth, that is, parallel to the surface of the earth. In this way, the rocket can only approach the predetermined orbit through a curved launch trajectory, and the possibility of achieving the expected launch target is greater.

The process of a rocket sending a payload into a predetermined orbit through a programmed turn is like a car entering another lane. It can only move closer to the other lane during the driving process. If it enters the lane vertically, it will be bad. Moreover, programmed turns are not only available for rockets. Missiles with similar launch principles also have the process of programmed turns. For example, vertically launched anti-aircraft missiles also need to undergo a programmed turn after launch to fly to the target.

The payload of this rocket test launch is a lunar spacecraft. Theoretically, after the lunar spacecraft leaves the earth and enters space, it can go directly to its destination, the moon. In this way, it seems that there is no need to enter orbit around the earth, and directly entering the earth-moon transfer orbit can solve the problem. However, the current level of aerospace engines is limited, and the energy density of chemical energy fuel is too low to work for a long time and continuously accelerate the rocket. In this case, scientists have come up with a way to accelerate the rocket again and greatly shorten the time to reach the moon. This method is to first enter an elliptical orbit around the earth, use the earth's gravitational slingshot effect to accelerate the rocket twice, and then change orbit to enter the earth-moon transfer orbit. "

Under the attention of the crowd and dozens of cameras and video cameras, the Star Arrow flew higher and higher, penetrated the clouds, and quickly disappeared from the camera. Du Qingqing promptly switched the live broadcast to the images captured by the Star Arrow's onboard camera. At this time, the Star Arrow's flight altitude had exceeded 4 kilometers, and the flight speed exceeded 700 kilometers per hour. In addition to the blue sky and white clouds, the live broadcast also showed a miniature version of the Ruida Aerospace City, embedded in the middle of a large green grassland. When the rocket flew to the 60th second, the Star Arrow officially broke through the sound barrier and entered the supersonic flight mode. The flight altitude also reached 19 kilometers, and it had passed through the air-dense area. (End of this chapter)