The military-industrial scientific research system of the academic master

It should be said that the basic Dongfeng 31 is not a ballistic missile with excellent performance.

If classified according to the threshold of 8,000 kilometers in the early years, it could only barely touch the edge of intercontinental missiles.

Fortunately, the difficulty of this mission mainly lies in the flying net mechanism. Even the satellite itself that performs the interception mission is disposable and will fall into the atmosphere and burn up along with the captured space debris.

Therefore, the requirements for the platform are not high, and the expected launch load is only about 100kg.

As long as the energy of the active section of the rocket can be managed well, it is not too difficult to successfully enter orbit.

At the same time, because the launch vehicle can be used directly for cold launch on hardened ground that meets certain requirements, it does not need to occupy a valuable satellite launch station. This is undoubtedly great news for the launch system that is already close to saturation at this stage. ——

Although China is not too late to start in the aerospace field, it has long been restricted by its national strength, and the resources it has poured into this area have been relatively limited.

Take the manned space project as an example. From the establishment of the project in early 1992 to the end of the first phase, the total budget for more than ten years was only on the order of tens of billions of yuan.

Under such circumstances, it is a miracle that engineering and technical personnel can ensure project progress and launch success rate through intensive work. As for the issue of "volume", naturally it can only be considered in a secondary position.

The fewer launches, the less experience.

With little experience, in order to ensure the success rate, it takes longer and more detailed preparations.

Therefore, at this stage, the space launch cycles of China's three major launch sites are quite long.

For example, 7 launches in the second half of 2004 were already an "overclocking" level that broke through the limits and deserved a special article to celebrate.

At the peak of the Cold War, the crazy frequency of launch missions by the United States and the Soviet Union every few days seemed almost like a science fiction movie to China back then.

In fact, originally, China itself did not have much demand for satellite launches, and the contradiction between it and its launch capabilities was not too obvious.

To be honest, after entering the new century, Chang Haonan himself has strongly promoted China's development in the field of aerospace applications through the two projects of Ocean One and Qingluan Constellation, greatly increasing the demand for the number of satellites in orbit. .

To some extent, it belongs to being trapped in a cocoon.

In short, after Chang Haonan wrote a report on this idea and submitted it, it was approved almost all the way.

Yin Liangxing, general manager of the Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation, was personally responsible for connecting with him.

Different from the model of many state-owned enterprises in which the first leader is responsible for management and the second leader is responsible for specific business, General Manager Yin Liangxing is a real professional.

Until more than two years ago, I was still responsible for specific front-line research and development work.

He should have a lot in common with Chang Haonan.

Sure enough, after meeting, the two just exchanged simple greetings and quickly got down to business.

"According to the information provided by our partners, it is expected that there will be a relatively strong solar storm in September-October this autumn. At that time, many spacecraft operating in orbit will be disturbed, and orbital operating parameters may also have certain changes. change."

Chang Haonan directly took out the solar activity detection report provided by ESA through Stellar Company:

"Considering that the orbital height of this piece of space debris is not much different from that of the International Space Station, if it is further affected and causes the orbit to drop, it may really threaten the safety of the space station, so we hope that it is best to be able to reach the orbit between the end of August and September 9 The launch and capture mission will be completed within this time window at the beginning of the month.”

Yin Liangxing watched with interest at first, but then he became a little confused:

"Wait a minute... Although solar activity may indeed affect the orbital parameters of the spacecraft, I have read relevant information before coming here. The debris is still several kilometers away from the space station... It is unlikely that it will be caused by a solar storm. Such a big gap, right?”

The Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation's main business is missiles, but he is an old engineer who worked in the aerospace system long before the separation, so he still knows something about these things.

"The actual possibility is indeed unlikely..."

Chang Haonan nodded and replied:

“The main mechanism of the impact of solar storms on orbits is to increase the density of the Earth’s upper atmosphere by inducing Joule heating and particle deposition, which leads to a significant increase in the resistance of satellites in orbit. However, this peak period only lasts 2-3 days. "

"That……"

Yin Liangxing obviously wanted to ask something more, but noticed that Chang Haonan didn't seem to have finished speaking, so he kept silent and waited for further explanation.

"In these two to three days, the orbital changes of the low-orbit spacecraft are very exaggerated. Without power boost, it is likely to drop by 200-300 meters every day."

The latter continued:

"This is a once-in-a-lifetime window for us. We can take the opportunity to exaggerate the urgent threat of space debris to outside public opinion, and unilaterally declare that NASA's rescue plan has failed. Then we can solve this problem before the solar activity completely ends. Crisis, so that you can naturally play the role of a savior... You know, Westerners really do this a lot of times. "

Poor old Comrade Yin had just transferred from a technical position to a full-time administrative position a year and a half ago, and he was managing a relatively autistic enterprise like Aerospace Science and Industry. He was immediately shocked when he heard Chang Haonan's sinister plan. expression.

Fortunately, I have seen strong winds and waves after all, and I quickly recovered from my surprise:

"If this is the case, the requirements for launch cycle and mission flexibility are indeed very high..."

While Chang Haonan was explaining the situation, the technical personnel from the Aerospace Science and Engineering Industry had already produced some of the electronic data they had brought.

So Yin Liangxing changed the subject and began to introduce his own situation:

"The production task of the basic Dongfeng 31 has basically entered the final stage. It is currently staying at the lowest production pace, mainly to retain the production line and wait for the next improved model to be put into production, so production capacity and working hours are not a problem."

"It's just that the thrust of solid rockets is highly nonlinear and its flexibility is much lower than that of liquid rocket engines. In addition, the launch positions near the equator in southern my country have been relatively rarely tested in the past, so the design of energy management and orbit entry methods The requirements are higher.”

Although it is not uncommon to transform ballistic missiles into launch vehicles, the tasks they perform have their own characteristics after all. It is definitely not just a matter of removing the warhead and directly putting it on a satellite.

The more critical question is.

Let alone solid rockets, China has not actually conducted a few test launches of medium- and long-range solid missiles.

In fact, Yin Liangxing attaches so much importance to this mission. In addition to the order coming directly from the top leadership, another important factor is that he hopes to accumulate more working data on solid rocket engines, which in turn will provide information to those who are in the critical stage of research and development. Next-generation, true intercontinental ballistic missiles to help...

"Don't worry about the orbit entry strategy."

Chang Haonan waved his hand:

"Comrade Zhou Pingjian, the chief designer of the manned space project, and Comrade Xing Muchun, the former deputy chief designer of the Long March 2F launch vehicle, are both responsible for the space fishing boat project. They have considerable experience in this area and have enough time to plan. A new launch mission.”

"As for energy management issues..."

He directly handed the other party a page that he had already written in his notebook:

"Because the control sequence of the single sub-stage engine of the solid launch vehicle is fixed, the basic function of the active stage during the orbit entry process is to use taxiing to increase the orbit height. I can develop a set of rocket boosting stages based on the transfer orbit planning data of fixed-point guidance. flight trajectory algorithm.”

However, Yin Liangxing shook his head:

"The key is not here..."

As he continued to explain, he took a piece of paper from the side and drew a picture:

"Liquid fuel rockets can adjust the flow and velocity of fuel through valves during the propulsion process, so essentially they do not perform specific actions at a specific time, but after reaching a certain position. However, the engine working time of solid fuel rockets cannot be free. Once the control is started, it can only perform a shutdown action at a preset time point."

“Even some fixed pushers with segmented propulsion capabilities have added partitions at specific positions of the solid grain column, which also cannot achieve free control of the switch-on time. Therefore, some additional steps are required at the middle and end of the solid push work. action, thereby consuming the excess velocity increment, and this process of dissipating excess velocity will affect the position component of the rocket and affect the final orbit insertion accuracy. "

Having said this, Yin Liangxing paused for a moment, and then changed into a somewhat regretful tone:

"On the other hand, the circular probability error of the basic Dongfeng 21 and Dongfeng 31 is actually not ideal. In addition to the accuracy issues of the inertial navigation system itself, there is also the relatively rough energy management of the solid rocket motor."

"Including the Type 31 A missile, which is currently in the final stage of research and development, the focus is only on improving the range and truly entering the threshold of intercontinental missiles. As for further reducing the circular probability error and realizing multiple warheads with separate guidance, it is still a later generation model. Target……"

"..."

"Although the satellite that performs the space fishing mission is not large in size, it also has certain maneuverable orbit changes, and it is not demanding on the accuracy of orbit insertion..."

Chang Haonan first dispelled the other party's concerns from the perspective of task requirements.

But he could also tell that the other party came with purpose and expectations, and would definitely not be satisfied with directly bypassing the problem.

So he continued:

"Of course, the circular probability... uh... it would be best if the orbit insertion accuracy could be improved, but this is a specific technical issue... I have to get the design information related to Dongfeng 31 before I can give you a clear answer."

As expected, Yin Liangxing was immediately overjoyed:

"In this regard, Academician Chang can rest assured that we will fully cooperate with your work!"