Super technology leader

The launch of the Yishan (Mountain Moving) super rocket could be described as "earth-shattering and ghost-weeping."

The enormous roar could be heard from extremely far away!

Its massive silhouette allowed people to watch it fly towards the universe!

The huge tail flame was also exceptionally clear to infrared radar!

In any case, the Yishan rocket was directly associated with the word "huge," and no one doubted the name "Yishan."

Some people even felt: "Whether it moves mountains or not doesn't matter; blowing up the mountain directly is no problem at all, and the effect is the same."

Turning a chasm into a thoroughfare!

Gravity and the atmosphere are the "natural chasm hindering transportation" between humanity and space, the "natural obstacle" to humanity's path to the future. The emergence of rockets is like building a bridge over this "chasm," and increasingly large rockets represent increasingly large bridges.

The Tianxia (All Under Heaven) people are very familiar with this. Tianxia's geographical environment is too complex, and people live in all corners of the country. Therefore, the Tianxia people build bridges, pave roads, dredge ditches, move mountains, fill seas, and bore tunnels to connect the entire "world" together.

Now it is the same. The Yishan rocket ascends, acting as the "cable-stayed bridge" of the space age, helping humanity connect the ground with space.

"Booster separation!"

The Yishan rocket has already flown very high. Although infrared tracking can see it clearly, the image is not very friendly to viewers, so they are being shown the rocket's perspective.

When the boosters separate, viewers can see a large gap suddenly open at the originally seamless connection point. The tail of the booster no longer emits flames, and then the maneuvering thrusters beside the booster suddenly fire outwards, quickly moving it away from the launch vehicle.

The launch vehicle flies upwards due to inertia, and then the engine ignites at high altitude, continuing to push it towards space.

Generally, it only takes a few minutes for a rocket to go from launch to entering space, and the Yishan rocket is naturally no exception.

When the Yishan rocket's launch vehicle enters space and climbs a certain distance into orbit, the cargo bay door finally opens.

Now, people finally know what it is carrying.

"Judging by the looks... it's actually a maintenance module?!"

"I thought they would launch the commercial district module first. I didn't expect the industrial district module, a maintenance module, to be launched first."

"Ah, is there a problem? Is there any significance to this launch order?"

"No problem. It depends on the Pathfinder's plan. It's just that it skipped the commercial district and directly launched the industrial district. How will this maintenance module dock with the rotating simulated gravity module?"

"Actually, it doesn't have to dock, right? Humans have built single-module space stations before. Just treat it as a single-module space station. After the modules of each district are assembled, they can dock together later."

"I estimate that Pathfinder is planning to change its approach. It's not focusing on commerce and is starting to focus on scientific research. Speaking of... with this maintenance module, humans can repair satellites in space, right?"

"What change of approach? I suddenly thought of an advertising slogan. I wonder if any brother can post it for everyone to see. This is also a very profitable industry."

"Here it is, the advertising slogan: High-altitude cleaning, satellite surface dust removal, solar panel polishing and waxing, space station painting and renovation, spacecraft maintenance and filter replacement. Large quantities, cheap, with invoices. For details, please consult General Tang of Pathfinder Aerospace Company, phone number 138... whatever."

"Hahaha, is this joke from so many years ago finally coming true? But your advertisement isn't complete. What about the beginning?"

"What beginning? Pathfinder Company isn't a military company. Aircraft carriers, submarines, nuclear warheads, and fighter jets have nothing to do with them."

"How do you know they have nothing to do with them? You probably don't know the relationship between domestic aerospace science and technology and aerospace industry. Pathfinder Space Station can build it, rockets can build it, lunar base can build it, orbital shuttle can build it. If they wanted to, what do you think these things could be modified into?"

"Hiss—after thinking carefully, I'm shocked!"

Many years ago, there was a funny picture online, I forgot where it came from, where someone Photoshopped the sign on a mobile tricycle into "Specializing in Aircraft Carrier Repair."

Below was a line of small print: Satellite Dust Removal and Waxing, Nuclear Warhead Oiling and Refurbishment!

The actual sign originally had words like "Repairing Leaky Roofs."

Because it was considered very interesting, it spread, and the "projects" being repaired became more and more numerous, eventually turning into a plain text mode.

But who would have thought that satellite waxing, oiling, and refurbishment, which seemed like a joke, would be a highly profitable high-tech industry in the future, far more promising than the rocket reusable launch project, which has only become popular in recent years and is not yet too mature.

First, this is because current human rockets are still transportation tools facing high temperature, high pressure, and high-intensity external impact environments. The one-time use of this kind of transportation tool itself is improving reliability.

Because all components only need to complete their duties for a maximum of about 30 minutes.

Forcing a high-risk engine system to forcibly increase from a maximum reliability of 30 minutes to 300 minutes, or even more, is very difficult in itself.

Especially when technology is insufficient.

In addition, rockets themselves have no actual economic benefits. The ultimate purpose of rocket work is to launch effective payloads into orbit.

Including all satellites, spacecraft, space stations, and deep space probes, etc.

This is the meaning of rocket work.

And all these ballistic flying objects can be regarded as various "artificial satellites."

And the value of satellites themselves, especially those large and heavy satellites, in most cases far exceeds the cost of the rockets that launch them.

For most heavy satellites, even if the rockets that launch them can be reused 5 or even 10 times, it is not as economically valuable as allowing the satellite to be refurbished once.

Taking Tianxia's most common rockets and satellites as examples, the international launch price of the Long March 3B rocket is about 60 to 70 million US dollars.

If the launched satellite platform is the Dongfanghong-3, then the selling price of the finished satellite is about 200 million US dollars.

And the selling price of a finished satellite based on the Dongfanghong-4 satellite platform may exceed 500 million US dollars.

The more advanced Dongfanghong-5 satellite platform even exceeds 1 billion US dollars.

This is still a relatively cheap price. If you purchase similar Western satellites, it may cost 1.5 billion US dollars each.

Therefore, which country now purchases large-capacity synchronous communication satellites, the seller simply "buys the satellite and gives away the launch."

The lifespan of a large-capacity communication satellite is 10 to 15 years, which is equivalent to consuming 100 million US dollars a year.

If it can be refurbished and extend its lifespan by half or even two-thirds, it is equivalent to creating 500 million to 1 billion US dollars in value.

Moreover, more than ten years have passed, and technology has definitely taken a big step forward. At this time, updating its equipment to make it more suitable for current and future tasks is not just a simple matter of saving money.

Let alone how many rocket launches are enough for one extension, the single item of rocket launch "not having a 100% success rate" is enough to make many people hesitate.

Yes, in case of launch failure, not only is the money wasted, but the country's future needs are also wasted.

The delayed launch of a satellite may affect a country's development strategy for the next few years, or even longer.

For example, some countries bought a weather satellite and wanted to rely on this satellite to achieve independent weather forecasting, get rid of the weather forecasting control of certain countries, and save certain countries from including private goods when providing meteorological data, but when these satellites failed to launch, they had to continue to endure for the next few years.

However, when "this satellite" is already in space orbit, that's another story.

As long as you don't actively decelerate the satellite and then let it quickly enter the atmosphere and burn up, it can stay in Earth orbit for a long time.

If you replace its parts and add some fuel at this time, so that the satellite from ten years ago feels like this year's satellite, wouldn't that be safe and advanced?

And there is an even more brilliant method.

If country A has no satellites in space and cannot upgrade them, then country B can even repair and upgrade its own retired orbital satellites and sell them directly to country A in space!