Rebirth of the 1980s: The Military Industry Empire

The principle of 'more power through brute force' holds true in any field.

If a rocket's own thrust isn't enough, adding boosters is a common practice. For example, the Russians often strap several boosters around their rockets to increase thrust.

For rocket launches, the most crucial step is escaping the atmosphere. This requires the greatest thrust. Therefore, simply attaching boosters to the first stage rocket can significantly increase the payload, even several times over.

Currently, the most mature rocket in China is the Long March 2. This rocket is actually an improvement upon the Dongfeng 5. Originally a two-stage rocket, now, by attaching four boosters around the first stage, the launch weight can be greatly increased!

Later rockets began to adopt a modular design, using different booster configurations to accommodate varying payloads. For example, the Long March 5 uses the same core stage, but different boosters result in near-Earth orbit carrying capacities ranging from six to eighteen tons.

For heavy-lift launch vehicles, the boosters are even more important than the core stage.

What Qin Yang was talking about was actually the Long March 2E (CZ-2E), a famous rocket in Eastern aerospace. Even the Shenzhou spacecraft was launched using the CZ-2E. However, the origins of this rocket are not necessarily known to the average person.

This rocket was born at the end of 1985. At that time, in order to enter the international market and launch Australian satellites for Hughes, the East needed a rocket with sufficient thrust. There wasn't enough time to develop a completely new rocket, so Huang Lao spent an evening drawing a sketch.

In the middle was the Long March 2C rocket, surrounded by four boosters, forming a new high-thrust launch vehicle. Then, he took this design to the Americans to request cooperation.

The Americans, of course, wouldn't agree based on a sketch. So, they made a request: a successful launch must be conducted before the end of June 1990, otherwise the cooperation would be terminated.

By the time the cooperation was finalized, it was already the end of 1988, leaving only 18 months until the deadline set by the Americans. Thus, the CZ-2E was urgently developed during this period.

Now that Qin Yang has returned, he certainly won't let this happen again. He wants the aerospace department to take action now, and once it's developed, confidently take it to the international market to solicit orders.

"This design uses as many mature products as possible, ensuring reliability and saving time," Qin Yang said. "Strive to get this rocket out by 1985, and then we can officially enter the international market."

1985 is a very important year. Even if you don't know the year, most people know about the Challenger explosion in the United States, which happened on January 28, 1985.

On February 22nd, the European rocket also failed to launch, the second failure in a row. European aerospace was plunged into darkness.

Then came the United States again. On April 18th, an American rocket exploded after launch, destroying the launch pad and causing heavy losses. Then, a little over ten days later, another American rocket went into the wrong attitude after launch and was forced to self-destruct.

The first half of 1985 was simply a disaster for world aerospace history. Seeing the frequent failures of various rockets, satellite owners didn't know what to choose, fearing that their satellites would be lost in a rocket launch again.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, the Eastern rocket emerged, seizing the market with its cost-effectiveness!

And before that, the CZ-2E can be developed.

"Qin, Director Qin, adding boosters is difficult. This is our first time doing it. I don't know if it will work," someone said.

According to the famous father of rocketry, if the speed is fast enough, you can fly out of the Earth, but if the rocket thrust is not large enough, the speed will not be achieved. What to do at this time?

The father of rocketry proposed the idea of ​​multi-stage rockets. After the rocket has worked for a period of time, the useless shell is discarded, so that the rocket can reduce its weight and continue to accelerate.

The Long March 2 is a two-stage rocket. The bottom stage is the longest, mainly to push the entire rocket away from the atmosphere. After the bottom stage is burned out, the upper rocket continues to ignite and accelerate until it reaches the first cosmic velocity.

If you want to hit the orbit of a synchronous satellite, you have to add a third stage. The country uses a liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen engine. This engine has the highest specific impulse and is one of the most advanced rocket engines. The United States has already used it as the main engine, but the East has just started experimenting.

The number of rocket stages is not the more the better, because more stages will increase the complexity. If a certain stage does not separate normally, the launch will fail.

Generally speaking, there are mostly two or three stages. Only India has immature technology and has made a four-stage rocket. As a result, the rocket is slender and trembles in the air, and it fell apart not long after launch.

In later generations, as the rocket thrust is large enough, there are also one-stage or one-and-a-half-stage rockets.

These multi-stage rockets are connected in series, and the separation is longitudinal when separating, which is relatively safe. If it is a bundled type, it is on the side, so the separation is lateral, which will naturally be more difficult.

"There will definitely be difficulties, but we can't be afraid of difficulties. Director Qin provides us with the plan, and we will implement it!" Qian Lao said: "Director Qin, are you sure this rocket can enter the international market?"

This is a rocket engine that uses unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide as fuel. Because the fuel is highly toxic, it is also called a toxic rocket. When refueling, you also need to wear a gas mask. In comparison, foreign countries have long eliminated it.

The Americans benefited from the Apollo program and mainly used liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen engines, while the Russians developed in many ways, but the main achievement was liquid oxygen kerosene engines, which were more advanced than those in the East.

When the East was building the Long March 5, it also used advanced engines. The boosters used liquid oxygen kerosene, and the core stage used liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. However, these were all things after the 1990s.

It is impossible for Qin Yang to spend a lot of money to invest in aerospace projects to help. He only gives advice.

The boosters of the Long March 2 use the YF25 engine, which is actually a modified version of the core stage YF20 engine. This booster can also be said to be a simplified version, such as removing the swing nozzle and changing the production process of the nozzle.

The core stage uses four YF20s with a diameter of 3.5 meters, and the booster uses one YF25 with a diameter of 2.25 meters. After bundling them together, the carrying capacity can be increased by more than three times, which is definitely cost-effective.

"Well, in this case, we probably need 500 million in research and development funds." Qian Lao said: "The country will not allocate this money. Director Qin, what do you think we should do?"