I ask you to build tractors, but you build rockets?

February 5, Tiangong Space Station.

Now, it is the 78th day since the six crew members took to the sky.

During this period, three of the crew members conducted a total of 5 extravehicular missions and did some activities that had no practical significance. Progress performed an unmanned supply mission.

The ground has been monitoring their mental and physical conditions, which are both very good.

The only thing that is a little hard is Zhou Rui. He is old and is not a professional astronaut. He must spend 2 to 4 hours exercising every day, otherwise he may have problems with the gravity function after returning to Earth.

There is a slight problem. After several astronauts get used to living in the Yunggong Space Station, it takes some time to adapt to entering the Tiangong-2 Space Station and the Shenzhou spacecraft, and they tend to become a little claustrophobic.

Therefore, it is easy to go from frugality to luxury, but it is difficult to go from luxury to frugality~

Fortunately, the new X-62 equivalent "Tianhe" core module jointly developed by the Fifth Academy and Xinyuan is about to be launched. The Tianhe core module has a docking port and a node module, so that after connection, it can have 9 in the future. For interfaces, scalability is MAX.

Accompanying the opening of the Tianhe core module is the second phase of the Tiangong project. From April 2016 to April 2017, four modules including a core module, a Tianzhou cargo spacecraft, and two experimental modules will be launched in space. It consists of 7 cabins and a total weight of 280 tons.

The "Tianhe" core module, "Wentian" experimental module, and "Mengtian" experimental module were all launched using Xinyuan 2. The giant cabin section has a diameter of 7.6 meters and a weight ranging from 38 tons to 43 tons.

By then, the maximum number of people that can be accommodated at the same time will increase to 12 people, six people for Tianhe, and three people for each of the two experimental cabins. The entire combination has 2,040 cubic meters of space, which has exceeded the International Space Station.

While waiting for the Tianhe core module to be launched, the Yungong core module will be used as the Xinyuan commercial operation module and will be open to the first batch of tourists who have completed training.

The third phase of Tiangong from April 2017 to April 2018 is also the final project. A "sky survey" space telescope will be launched, and a space hotel manufactured by Italy's Alenia Aerospace will also be docked. The final overall mass will be 330 It is about a ton and is already on the same level as the International Space Station.

The maximum number of people the entire complex can accommodate at the same time is 27, while the ISS only has 13 people.

Such a huge space station plan has won unanimous praise from the space agency, but before that, the mission of the Tiangong Space Station was to celebrate the New Year.

According to the procedure, the six astronauts will post Spring Festival couplets together and then greet the New Year during the Spring Festival Gala live broadcast, which is also a celebration of the first New Year for Chinese people in space.

Then on March 10, 112 days after they took to space, Unity launched again, sending six new astronauts into space and taking them down at the same time.

But before watching the New Year greetings outside the atmosphere, you can also look at the New Year greetings inside the atmosphere.

…

"Class 4, Zhuang Tao, come out!"

"arrive!"

"Class 5, Zhao Weihao and Li Chenyang are out!"

"..."

In the temporary flight school that was expanded and renovated in the hangar, 28 instructors take turns selecting outstanding students who have obtained primary flight certification from each teaching class.

Among these 28 instructors, 12 are retired pilots recruited by Xinyuan and are preparing to be trained as professional astronauts, 8 are employees at Xinyuan base who are very good at flying, and 8 are sent by the Western Air Force.

Employees at B-level bases are different from students. It is very easy for them to obtain flight hours. They can obtain flight hours every month for workshop evaluation and technical assessment. It is easy to get hundreds of hours of free time.

It can be said that as long as you are not a pure bastard and don't want to go, you can fly as long as you have time in the base and you don't need to worry about money at all.

Therefore, some talented engineers quickly emerged, and flying around after get off work has become a leisure activity for Xinyuan employees.

After 5 o'clock every night, nearby residents can hear the sound of V8 aero engines and propellers in the sky, and see groups of Caiyun primary training aircraft falling from the sky, flying past the bark of the trees, leaving behind Leaves fell everywhere.

These aerospace engineers rely on their technical skills to know the performance of beginner aircraft very well, and they are not conservative at all when flying. They fly just in time for students after school every day, so primary and middle school students have another repertoire: watching airplanes.

Nearby primary and secondary schools have also actively contacted Xinyuan, hoping to allow the flight team to come to their schools to carry out activities. Therefore, while they complained that the flight school was disturbing residents, they actually welcomed it.

The Air Force is much more interesting. They nominally want to ensure the safety of training for a large number of trainees, and they send people to supervise the training and also serve as volunteer instructors. They seem to be quite enthusiastic.

In fact, these "instructors" look through students' training records all day long, specifically looking for good prospects to build relationships with, and they regard Xinyuan as a talent reserve.

The air force leaders originally felt that there were too many aircraft and regretted giving Xinyuan such great power, but later they figured it out:

Those who come to the B-level base for training are basically college students majoring in aerospace and aerospace related majors. The number is close to 3,000, and it will definitely increase every year. With so many people, it is not an exaggeration to have one outstanding pilot out of 20.

This is simply a reserve base for excellent talents acquired for free. You can also select them in advance and dig a little every year, which can also reduce your own training costs.

However, they were a little disappointed that the effect of poaching was not as good as expected.

If the Air Force was originally willing to come to the university to recruit pilots, it would certainly be welcome, but now students from the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics and other cooperative majors from other universities are different. After graduation, they can not only work for one of the top aerospace companies in the country and even the world, but also use aircraft as If you drive a small car, you will have the opportunity to go to space in the future.

In comparison, the appeal of pilots is no longer so strong.

Think about it and say, "Do you want to fly? I'll take you flying." When flirting with girls in the future, it's not too cool.

Although Xinyuan's salary level is not particularly outstanding, the cost of maintaining a huge fleet is exaggerated. An average engineer's monthly salary may not be able to support a beginner's aircraft flying one or two hours a day.

On February 6, 28 instructors and 14 outstanding students flew 18 Dragon intermediate trainer aircraft and 24 Caiyun primary trainer aircraft. They took off from the airport one after another and then formed a formation. A helicopter nearby was responsible for taking photos.

The first batch of pilot students has not yet graduated, but the first batch of Flying Dragon trainer aircraft has successfully rolled off the assembly line.

As for the Meteor higher education machine, we have to wait until the company resumes work and the first batch can be assembled in March.

42 aircrafts pulled colorful smoke and were even specially approved to perform a flight show over the urban area. They performed various fancy maneuvers over the entire urban area and performed for 40 minutes before leaving.

But this does not help the protests of residents in the suburbs of Xinyuan. There are more and more planes in Xinyuan every day, and the government has already had to relocate a small group of residents closer to the airport.

However, the province strongly supports this. Xinyuan has just ordered a few aircraft, and they already said they want to build an aviation city...

Someone uploaded the flight performance to the Internet, and then the acquired Westland company was surprised to find out how the Xinyuan "Flying Dragon" and its own "Flying Dragon" were surprisingly similar. If it hadn't been sixty or seventy years ago, it would have been over a long time ago Once the prosecution period has expired, I am afraid that I will sue the other party for infringement.

February 7th, New Year’s Eve.

The Spring Festival Gala has come to an end, and there is one more place to connect to: Tiangong Space Station.

Six astronauts, male and female, old and young, wearing dark blue casual clothes, pasted Spring Festival couplets on the interface between the square and circular areas of the Yun Palace core module.

In addition to celebrating the New Year together, due to the special nature of the Yungong Space Station, we can also gather in the observation cabin and make dumplings with the moist dumpling wrappers that we try our best to preserve on the ground.

It is impossible for astronauts to knead flour in space. Flour is flammable and explosive. It would be too uncomfortable to float into any small gap and get inhaled into the human body.

After these dumplings are wrapped, it is a bit difficult to cook them and eat them, requiring a specially adapted microwave oven to steam them.

Just for the astronauts to eat freshly packaged and "cooked" dumplings in space, the ground has spent a lot of effort~

However, the effect is obvious and worthwhile. Chinese people have a special obsession with freshly cooked and hot food, including astronauts. Only by cooking with your own hands on the space station can you feel a sense of belonging to "home". Otherwise, you will never feel like home. Although it is delicious to eat fast food, it always feels like I am on a business trip.

Then there is the connection to the Spring Festival Gala in various regions. This time, the scene in Qiongzhou is still the same, with the characteristic singing and dancing 2 kilometers in front of the rocket launch tower. It’s just that the mist-shrouded Xinyuan 2 is smaller than last year’s Xinyuan 1. Many, occupying the entire height of the screen.

Fortunately, the ban on fireworks has not yet been strictly enforced, so when the Spring Festival Gala mentioned that the next program would be a large-scale fireworks show, the host was not too afraid.

At the beginning of the program, the launch site of Xinyuan-2 appeared on the huge background screen.

Due to the high-frequency launches of Xinyuan-2 this year, many people have seen such a scene, but this is the first time for a night launch.

Spectators who had experience with last year's fireworks already knew what was going to happen.

The launch center heard the pilot's signal and immediately issued the launch order.

Throughout the Spring Festival Gala venues and in front of TV sets, countless people across the country and even overseas were counting down together.

After all, this kind of program will be attacked by environmental groups as soon as it is heard. Only China can now conduct it without interference, and it is such a big rocket. Who doesn't want to watch the excitement?

When the countdown returned to zero, Xinyuan-2 ignited 1 second in advance, and then quickly rose with its tail flame.

Under the dark night sky without a moon, the light of seven M220 liquid oxygen methane engines lit up the sky. The scene was much more spectacular than last year.

60 seconds later, the fifteen firework cans on the second stage reached a predetermined height and separated, and the first stage rocket turned sideways to land.

In the camera view, eight more meteors suddenly appeared in the sky. They were eight fireworks cans that spread out in all directions under the action of solid rockets.

In Qiongzhou itself, many people either walked out of their homes or stood on their balconies, and could already see several bright lines in the sky.

Then, eight bright points exploded simultaneously, producing countless burning metals that covered the sky and spread rapidly, like a sea of ​​stars expanding.

At the same time, the centermost flare exploded.

An extremely bright flash suddenly emitted from the darkness, and then the entire cloud layer was illuminated, and everyone on the ground was cast into shadow by the pale light.

That's 15 tons of flares burning at the craziest speed!

The soldiers at the nearby military base were in a daze. They remembered that during the joint exercise, the Blue Army fired hundreds of flares into the sky, but none of them were as bright as this one. This must have flipped the switch of the sun!

Since there was no rehearsal, the Xinyuan engineers at the launch center were also a little surprised. It was so bright that it overshadowed the rest of the fireworks!

At the Spring Festival Gala, a group of spectators were dumbfounded. Regardless of the appreciation and artistry, the scene was comparable to a nuclear bomb explosion and was indeed impressive.

The complete departure in 2015 ended with a shining new star.