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

On August 6, Falcon 9 successfully completed its first sea recovery.

I don’t know if the previous failure used up all the bad luck. The Falcon 9, which was reused for the third time, landed accurately in the center of the tugboat, perfectly.

Now the whole world knows that Kongcha has become the second space company after Xinyuan to master mature rocket recovery technology.

At the same time, the final assembly of the Long March 6 Yaosan rocket has been completed. According to arrangements, it will carry six satellites and launch them from the Sechang Satellite Launch Center on August 11, sending them into a 500-kilometer sun-synchronous orbit.

But now if He Ruang doesn't want to launch, the person in charge of Sechang Satellite Launch Center doesn't want to launch either.

"Old He, the Long March 6 bombed Bingzhou and Jiuquan. If this continues, it will also blow up Seichang, and then Qiongzhou, and then none of them."

He Ruang was speechless by the person in charge of Sechang Satellite Launch Center. It took him a long time to squeeze out words such as "failure of the experiment is not a failure" and "gathering experience".

He himself also sighed when looking at the Long March 6. After two failed launches, the Long March 6R continued to improve. The first stage rocket was no longer distinguishable from the Xinyuan 1C, but it did not mean that it would also succeed. Reuse.

The Sixth Institute handled the engine as perfectly as if they had taken aphrodisiacs. The flight control and recovery legs were both from the Eighth Institute, so you can't blame them.

In the difficult recycling control technology research that has lasted for 9 months, the more He Zhuo learns about it, the more desperate he becomes:

Rocket recovery is theoretically possible, but the actual operation is too complicated. To achieve it, you have to explode like Ma Yilong. After trial and error, you will naturally succeed. Haven't you seen people succeed every time they shoot these days? Once you find that point of success, there are no more technical obstacles.

Or find it from the beginning like Xinyuan, but that is too difficult, unless it is a unique genius who just happens to have great luck.

The clamping and recovery of the grille rudder is even more outrageous. It is an order of magnitude more difficult than the recovery of the support legs. I dare not even think about it.

During another sleepless night, He Ruan suddenly received a piece of gossip from a friend in the capital:

The superiors have spoken. The space agency will launch large-scale cooperation with Xinyuan in the military and civilian fields and sell some sensitive or high-tech components and materials to each other, including the RX-01 data bus and the control assembly of the support leg recovery technology.

…

The recyclable rocket, Xinyuan 2 with a take-off thrust of more than 1,500 tons, the H1 space shuttle, and the Orient Express rescue plan have had a huge impact on superiors. In addition to brewing a new round of aerospace system reform, there are also proposals to include private enterprises. New space program, full name:

"8·15 Future Space Technology and Space Exploration Development and Promotion Committee"

The abbreviation of 815 Aerospace Development Committee (abbreviation of China Aerospace development committee), abbreviation of CADC, can also be abbreviated as Aerospace Development Committee.

The committee is led by the National Space Administration, with the First, Fifth and Eighth Institutes as its backbone and private enterprises as its backbone, to jointly carry out China's future space program, including:

China’s own large space station;

Unmanned deep space exploration plans for the moon and Mars;

Manned deep space exploration plans for the Moon and Mars;

Plans for manned permanent scientific research stations on the Moon (near term) and Mars (long term);

Planetary exploration plan in the solar system (detector-based);

Cosmic Observation Program (Space Telescope);

Commercial Space Tourism Industry Plan;

Space resource development (power, agriculture) program;

…

The emergence of Xinyuan Aerospace Power Company seriously interfered with the judgment of superiors, causing them to keep thinking about why a private aerospace company was doing this and whether there was something wrong with it, so they decided to make a major reform of China's traditional aerospace model. .

The subsequent aerospace plans will be decided by the Aerospace Development Committee, submitted to a special group composed of several major leaders for approval, and then implemented according to the budget. There will no longer be a rigid set of steps or specific time, and the plan will be carried out as long as the budget allows.

This was a completely bold attempt, which allowed the space program to develop freely and loosened its original constraints by focusing on science rather than politics.

The execution unit shall be selected or assigned tasks by the Aerospace Development Commission between the space agency and private enterprises, provide research funds or technical support, and then accept the results according to plan requirements.

There will be no major adjustments to the aerospace engineering budget for the time being, but special channels will be opened to communicate directly with superiors so that additional budgets can exceed expectations.

Even Lin Ju could not have imagined that his superiors would take such a big step, almost completely overturning the original structure.

But then I have to admire their wisdom. On the surface, the Aviation Development Committee has huge power and high level, but if there is chaos or unsatisfactory situation, it only needs to be disbanded to eliminate the impact and have it in hand at any time.

However, the existence of the Aerospace Development Committee is a good thing for Lin Ju, because the resolutions within the Aerospace Development Committee are discussed together by the space agency and private enterprises, and the voting rights are the same. Currently, only Xinyuan Aerospace Power has this qualification.

In other words, as long as the resolution is passed, there is no problem in launching manned missions to the moon now. We can completely use the country's money to complete the system's tasks, and we can also do things in tiger skin, which will be much more convenient in many aspects.

It is also a good thing for many scientists in the space agency. They will consciously decide whether to carry out a certain space mission, instead of waiting for their superiors to arrange or report to them for approval slowly, reducing administrative time and costs.

The Aerospace Development Committee was established in Beijing, with its headquarters located here, and offices of various aerospace institutes and Xinyuan.

Lin Ju's current identity is the representative of Xinyuan Aerospace Power, a private enterprise of the Aerospace Development Committee. In theory, he is at the same level as the big boss of the space agency, and he has the right to make recommendations on the space program through executive meetings.

The first thing the Aerospace Development Committee needs to do is to conduct small-scale technical exchanges between the space agency and Xinyuan and unify technical standards.

The first and most important thing is the spacecraft docking interface.

The space agency uses a 0.85-meter round port, and Xinyuan has two standards: 0.9-meter round port and 2.5-meter square port.

The 0.85-meter round mouth and the 0.9-meter round mouth are of the same type. There is not much difference. Anyone can use it. Of course, Lin Ju prefers to use his own. The modification project is small~

The big mouth is controversial because the 2.5-meter square mouth is too big, with an area of ​​6.25 square meters, and the 0.85-meter round mouth is only 0.56 square meters. The gap is really too big.

The International Space Station only uses a 1.2-meter square or round opening, which sounds a bit scary when it is so big.

Moreover, Xinyuan's 2.5-meter square opening technical route is very unique. It takes up too much space to use an integral type for such a large hatch, so the hatch is sliding and folding, which sounds unreliable and technically difficult.

After discussion, the small docking interface adopts 0.9-meter round port because Xinyuan's 0.9-meter round port RX01 protocol is more advanced.

The large docking port is based on Xinyuan's 2.5-meter square port, because the space agency does not have relevant reserves for large-scale docking ports, and Androv said that the 2.5-meter square port is mature.

The second is the protocol. The communication protocol of the spacecraft must be unified.

Xinyuan proposed to use their own RX01 data bus on the grounds that the processing capacity limit is much higher than 1553B and more reliable.

The RX01 data bus requires 8 chipsets and 64 functional modules, and can be expanded and changed as needed. It is more scalable and advanced than 1553B.

The chipset and functional modules used are very low-cost and can be produced domestically. They can even be combined with existing general-purpose DSP chips to function. The customized chips will only improve reliability and reduce system complexity without affecting performance.

Lin Ju said that he would license RX01 for free within the Aviation Development Committee, which really made others unable to resist.

And then he also dropped a bombshell: the support leg recovery technology can be shared by selling the entire control system, one-time purchase, free for life, and rockets with a diameter of 5 meters and below can be customized for a fee.

And he also revealed that Xinyuan's recycling control technology is mature and stable because of the use of the RX01 data bus.