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

December 4, Baikonur Cosmodrome.

On the launch pad of the west launch area, a strange rocket has been erected, pointing far into the sky over the grassland.

Miklin, who looked older than last year, did not stay at the command center in Moscow, but was watching the rocket that was about to be launched not far from the launch pad.

Beside him were many members of the design bureau, and even director Borisov was here. The latter was putting down his telescope and looking at the old and comfortable Miklin:

"Yevgeny, is this our first recyclable rocket?"

"At least partially recyclable."

There was not much emotion in Miklin's tone, which made people feel that he might not be satisfied with him.

But Borisov doesn’t think so. Angara S2 is an out-and-out reusable rocket, and it is the world’s first gliding and reusable rocket.

Angara S2 originated before the Huayin Treaty Conference. At that time, RKA had received notification from the space agency, and it was truly confirmed that they would carry out the lunar program non-stop.

At that time, the "Zenith" booster prepared for the "Hurricane" rocket had already conducted four separate launch-landing tests and achieved three successes, so Borisov requested that a usable recyclable rocket be built as soon as possible based on this. .

Miklin finally chose to use the Angara A1 rocket as the core stage and two zenith boosters to create a new Angara S2 rocket.

The Angara series is a family of rockets. The basic model uses a 3.6-meter-diameter rocket body and an RD191 engine. The subsequent expansion is to connect different numbers of core stages in parallel as boosters. It is a CBC configuration like the Delta IV.

The bare-rod Angara A1 design can withstand the strong thrust of the booster, so it was selected as the core stage of the new recyclable rocket.

After being bundled with two zenith boosters, the take-off mass of Angara S2 exceeds 1,100 tons. The take-off thrust is provided by the core stage RD191 and the booster RD171MV, a total of 1,690 tons of thrust. It is an out-and-out heavy-duty rocket. .

Although the "Zenith" booster cannot cross the atmosphere, it can provide 720 tons of thrust with a dead weight of 470 tons. Even if the glide kit has a heavy dead weight, it can still achieve a load coefficient of 2.7% for the entire rocket. , the low-Earth orbit transport capacity during recovery reached 30 tons, and the GTO orbit launch capacity was 9.5 tons.

The development process of Angara S2 is not long, and only the booster can be recycled, but the launch price still plummets a lot.

The payload of this launch is 11 remote sensing satellites with a total mass of 6.2 tons. The second stage uses an RD0124 engine. The cost is 2.5 billion rubles and the quoted price is 7.4 billion rubles, which is approximately US$120 million.

The Evergreen Proton M rocket with a GTO capacity of 7.5 tons costs 1.4 billion rubles, and the quoted price is 4.4 billion rubles, which is approximately US$71 million.

It seems that the Angara S2 with a slightly stronger transport capacity is too expensive, but the cost of the one-time use core level, that is, the Angara A1, is only 4 billion rubles, and the remaining two boosters can be reused 20 times. above.

The price of Angara A1 is also because it has only been developed recently, and the future cost amortization will be around 2.5 billion rubles. After calculating the life of the booster, the cost of a single launch can be 2.9 billion rubles, which is 47 million US dollars.

This price is extremely attractive even now that the competition for recyclable rockets is very fierce, and it can be lowered as the number of rockets increases. It is optimistically expected to eventually reach about 40 million US dollars.

Externally, it can undertake various high-orbit heavy satellite launch missions. Internally, Lucia can also be used with confidence and can save considerable launch costs.

For example, the rotating gravity module of the International Space Station, which is expected to be launched using the Angara A5, can also be launched using the Angara S2, but the launch cost can be reduced by more than half.

In the future, Micklin also plans to develop a rocket with a smaller capacity based on it and install a second stage directly above the "Zenith" booster. The capacity will be less than 10 tons and the launch cost will be less than 35 million US dollars. However, the posture problem that needs to be solved requires very high computer control, and the development difficulty is actually greater than that of the bundled Angara S2.

Borisov is extremely satisfied with such a pragmatic plan. Anyway, the Federation does not have any big launch missions now, and the development of the giant rocket "Hurricane" has now come to a standstill.

The reason for the stagnation is still the required RD0120 engine. It is extremely difficult to resume production of high-performance hydrogen and oxygen machines, and delays may occur at any time.

And except for the extremely expensive but amortizable lunar mission, Lucia cannot afford the "Hurricane" at all, and a smaller rocket can save a lot of money.

"Yevgeny, my great designer, you have done a great job. We will soon be the third country in the world to master recyclable rockets."

He tried to comfort Miklin, but the old man just muttered melancholy:

"We're just getting started, but someone is already launching a cruiser into space."

Miklin is of course talking about the Long March 18 (Xin Yuan 4) rocket. Recently, the media has photographed the final assembly box being erected and the Jiuzhang spacecraft waiting to be hoisted, indicating that it is about to be launched.

A launch mass of more than 15,000 tons can be considered as a cruiser when placed on a warship. Foreign media gave it a very appropriate nickname "Mosasaurus".

The Long March 18 is shaking the nerves of astronauts around the world all the time. It has almost reached the extreme of conventional fuel rockets, and every piece of data is a headache.

Miklin felt as if aerospace was originally a rope hanging from the clouds. Everyone was trying their best to climb and it became more and more difficult as they went up. However, now there is a guy who not only climbed to the top very quickly, but also touched At the end of the rope, the ceiling of the chemical rocket was nailed up.

From then on, every astronaut knew that chemical rockets had come to an end, and it would be impossible for latecomers to surpass them. Chemical power was already a sunset technology waiting to be eliminated.

This feeling of being locked in the future is far more shocking than the Rockets themselves. It's hard for anyone to remain calm when they see the end of their career.

Miklin was in such a state of composure now. It was not until he found that there were cheering crowds in front of him that he looked in the direction of the runway in shock. It turned out that the Angara S2 had been launched and recovered in his trance. Two boosters The vehicle glided and landed like a drone, and came back with all its tail intact.

"The launch was successful?"

"Yes, Yevgeny, the president will give you a Gold Star! You are as great a designer as Korolev, and you changed Lucia Aerospace!

What do you want? I will upgrade you to the best villa and private doctor. Tell me what else you want. This is a reward for the results of your work! "

"I want to take a vacation, not much, just 10 days."

"Oh, of course that's no problem. Do you want to go abroad? I don't recommend you go to Europe."

"No, I want to go to Qiongzhou, it's very warm there."

Miklin showed a longing look:

"And it also has the most extreme aesthetics of aerospace."