Earth Era

The material storage warehouse of the Red Heart spacecraft has been installed in the Hercules rocket. At this moment, the Hercules rocket stands beside the launch tower. The huge arrow body with a height of 70 meters pointed straight at the sky, and a heroic aura piercing the sky continued to emanate from it.

After the old man issued the order, the five astronauts stood at attention at the same time, faced the screen, and saluted all the operators in the control hall with a standard military salute, then turned around and left the control hall in a neat line.

Through the monitoring screen, Zhao Huasheng saw that the five astronauts boarded the shuttle bus, and the shuttle bus drove directly to the launch tower. The five astronauts got off the bus, and then ascended to the level with the arrow tip of the Hercules rocket through the elevator. the height of.

Workers have been evacuated from the tower. Through the air bridge, five astronauts entered the rocket one by one. Then the exit of the material storage warehouse is closed, and the rocket channel is closed.

The camera in the storage compartment transmits the pictures of the astronauts in real time, and the space suit in the cabin monitors the astronauts' heart rate, breathing rate, blood pressure, body temperature and other data at all times.

Wind gauges report current surface wind speeds as well as upper-level wind speeds, and weather satellites report current weather conditions. Rocket sensors report on the health of instruments in various parts of the rocket. The staff members were working intensely, and an extremely dignified atmosphere enveloped the entire control hall. The image of the old man has been on the big screen, obviously, the old man has been watching here.

About forty minutes after the astronauts entered the rocket, Wang Tang came to the big screen again and reported to the old man: "Report to the head of state, everything is ready, all modules of the rocket are normal, and the weather conditions are good, please give instructions!"

The old man nodded: "Launch!"

Wang Tang turned around and shouted loudly: "Enter the 30-second countdown!"

Two huge Arabic numerals appeared on another screen, one was three and the other was zero. After a while, the number changed and became twenty-nine.

The huge steel frame around the rocket and connected to the launch tower suddenly separated at this time, cutting off the connection between the Hercules rocket and the launch tower.

The detection signals of each module of the rocket were continuously reported, and after these reports, the words "everything is normal" were all added. That means the Hercules rocket is in good shape.

When the countdown reached four, on another large screen broadcasting the real-time exterior of the Hercules rocket, Zhao Huasheng saw a crimson flame appear at the tail of the Hercules rocket. This flame is not strong, but it seems to be full of power.

This group of rockets quickly strengthened in just four seconds, and finally turned into a vertical jet. As the flame intensified, the four boosters mounted on the Hercules rocket ignited simultaneously. The flames from the booster and the rocket's main engine merged and eventually became so bright that it was almost impossible to look directly at it.

"zero!"

"Launch!" Wang Tang yelled out the word launch.

At this moment, the flames ejected from the tail of the Hercules rocket intensified again. When these flames just left the rocket, they turned into a colorless and transparent appearance. Only the air around them that was distorted due to the high temperature showed their power. After a few meters away from the tail of the rocket, they showed a strong crimson red and rolled into a ball.

A large amount of white dense fog evaporated from the tail of the rocket, almost covering a space with a radius of tens of meters. Zhao Huasheng knew that it was formed by the rapid evaporation of the flame ejected from the rocket by the diversion groove, and then the rapid evaporation of the liquid used to cool down.

At this moment, even Zhao Huasheng, who was sitting at least a thousand meters away from the Hercules rocket, felt the ground tremble. It was a very slight, but very dull shaking, like an earthquake, but it was not the same as an earthquake.

Zhao Huasheng raised his head, and saw from the real-time location display screen that the Hercules heavy launch vehicle, which was 70 meters high and weighed more than 4,000 tons, was slowly rising into the sky. At the beginning, its speed was very slow, as if a rope was slowly lifting it up, but after only a dozen seconds, its speed increased to a shocking speed. high.

In the extremely fast acceleration, the gravity inside the rocket can even be as high as ten times the gravity of the earth. This can be seen from the slightly distorted faces of the five astronauts lying flat in the storage compartment.

Under such a huge gravity, the astronauts can't even raise their arms. They could only lie quietly in the storage warehouse, using all their strength to resist the huge gravity beyond ordinary people's imagination.

A large number of things that seemed to be fragments were peeled off from the rocket body, and splashed to the ground like rain. Zhao Huasheng knew that those fragments were the insulation layer of the rocket, and they were actually some foam plastics.

When the rocket was still on the surface, in order to prevent the low temperature on the ground from affecting the material structure of the rocket body, the engineers affixed these things on the shell of the rocket body. When the rocket lifts off, the intense friction with the atmosphere will peel off the plastic foam, which forms the debris seen at this moment.

There were constant reports in the control hall. Hearing the "normal" and "normal" one by one, Zhao Huasheng's slightly nervous mood calmed down.

More than 20 seconds after the rocket took off, the direction of the rocket's ascent changed. It no longer pointed vertically at the sky, but began to shift slightly to the east. Because the earth's rotation is from west to east, shifting to the east can use the earth's rotation to increase its speed.

After more than a minute, the four boosters installed on the Hercules rocket body left the rocket at the same time. They have done their duty, so it is time to leave. At this moment, the speed of the rocket cannot reach the first cosmic speed of the earth, so those boosters that have detached will fall to the earth at a very high speed, and then be damaged in the violent friction with the atmosphere. It is also possible that some debris fell to the ground if the combustion was not sufficient.

Soon after the booster separation, it was time for the first stage engine to separate. In order to ensure a strong propulsion, the Hercules rocket has a three-stage structure. Among the three-level structure, the first-level engine is responsible for the most important and arduous task. So it has the largest volume. The total length of the Hercules rocket is 70 meters, and the length of the first-stage engine has reached nearly 30 meters.

The Hercules rocket was still flying at high speed, but at this moment the flame at its tail suddenly disappeared. The next moment, the 30-meter-long first-stage engine left the rocket with a bang. It also fell to the earth like the booster that had been separated before, and then disappeared in the violent friction with the atmosphere.

The first-stage engine disengages and the second-stage engine ignites, which will take on the heavy responsibility of continuing the rocket into orbit.

It took less than a minute for the secondary engine to ignite and then followed in the footsteps of the primary engine. It also fell off the rocket and fell into the atmosphere, and the three-stage engine began to ignite.

At this moment, the Hercules rocket has reached a height of more than 300 kilometers from the surface of the earth, and has reached the height of the low-Earth orbit. But this height is not enough, it will continue to rise.

The air here is already extremely thin, so the fairing at the tip of the rocket is useless, and it is also thrown by the rocket and falls into the atmosphere.

The material storage warehouse is completely exposed to the space environment. However, there is also a complete life support system in the material storage warehouse, so this will not have any impact on the astronauts in the warehouse.

The third-stage engine also completed the task after working for more than half a minute. However, it will not be thrown off the rocket. At this time, it is the material storage warehouse that will leave the rocket.

This step is the separation of the ship and arrow. After the acceleration of the three-stage rocket engine, the material storage warehouse has gained enough speed, and it can already enter the orbit around the earth. In the future, it will travel alone.

The launch has basically succeeded at this point. In the control hall, the staff also recovered from their nervousness. The real-time images of the astronauts are still being broadcast on the display screen. Zhao Huasheng saw that the astronauts had escaped the trouble of huge gravity, and they were in a weightless environment at the moment. Zhao Huasheng saw them floating spontaneously in the cabin, as if they were in water.

"Finally nothing unexpected happened." Zhao Huasheng breathed a sigh of relief, and threw out the ominous premonition in his mind.

The material storage warehouse also has its own propulsion engines, which will be used for the track and speed adjustment of the cabin. In the following time, the material storage warehouse will revolve around the earth for two weeks at a speed of 87 minutes per revolution, and adjust its posture, angle and speed during this period, and finally meet with the Red Heart Rocket docking.

Zhao Huasheng has been waiting here. At the material storage warehouse, the sun rose and set, and rose and set twice, a total of two times. The figure of the Crimson Heart solar exploration spacecraft finally appeared within the field of vision.

The speed of the material storage warehouse and the Scarlet Heart spacecraft are both 9.3 kilometers per second at the moment. It's incredibly high speed, but because the two are maintaining the same speed, they appear to be standing still with each other. In such a nearly static situation, the two are slowly approaching each other. Finally, with the assistance of the ground staff, the docking ports were successfully docked, and the steel claws used to fix the docking of the two were also smoothly stretched out, firmly connecting the two together.

The five astronauts came to the control room of the Scarlet Heart spacecraft from the material storage warehouse through the docking port.