Chapter 253 Laurel

"Asia Star? Asia pigeon king is more like that, but JAXA is a bunch of idiots. They are jointly developing a moon rocket with India? Do they want our astronauts to go to the moon on a cow dung spacecraft?!"

When the "Asia Star" moon landing plan was announced, and the two countries really exchanged and negotiated formally many times in the following week, the whole world was a little stunned.

The first thing worth complaining about is the name, Asia Star? China is so big and it doesn't say that it is Asia Star. You two dragons and phoenixes are called Asia Star?

Xiao Gangtian directly tweeted to criticize JAXA, what level do you dare to call yourself Asia Star? It's more like Asia Ape.

And another point of the H-X (JAXA code name for Asia Star rocket) rocket is its configuration. It can't be said to be exactly the same as SLS, but it can only be said to be from the same source.

The core stage of four LE-9 hydrogen-oxygen engines and two five-segment SRBs, if you put them there, it will definitely be a smaller version of SLS.

Moreover, the rocket body and engine technology of the island country is derived from the "Delta-1" rocket technology purchased by Aramco after the relaxation of regulations in the 1970s. India's S200 solid thrust technology is obviously also derived from Aramco.

So... is this a monkey version of SLS that Aramco has accumulated with technology?

But what's interesting is that the low-moon transfer orbit capacity of the H-X with a takeoff thrust of 2,200 tons and the SLS with a takeoff thrust of 3,900 tons seems to be not much different, the former is 23 tons, and the latter is 27 tons.

This is certainly not because the two LE-5B gas generator cycle 10-ton hydrogen-oxygen engines that the island country is preparing to use for the second stage of the H-X are so powerful, but the second stage of the SLS Block1 only uses one RL-10B engine with a thrust of only 11.2 tons, which greatly reduces the carrying capacity.

Of course, the latter is not that only two can be used, but even if the SLS Block2 uses two RL-10B engines, it cannot hit the "Blue Moon" lander and spacecraft that Blue Origin spent $3.4 billion to develop.

SLS Block2 is a cargo rocket, mainly used to transport large payloads to low-Earth orbit. This configuration is not used for the early moon landing of the Artemis program.

So if the SLS rocket could speak, it would definitely point to the H-X and say: When there are no heroes, the young ones become famous.

But the Asia Star program... How to say it, if you only look at the H-X rocket, it seems to be really similar. Like the SLS, all the engines are ready-made, and the rocket body is full of mature technology, without any difficulties.

The island country does not seem to lack technology for manned spacecraft. India's Gaganyan program has also obtained a lot of information from Russia. Theoretically, the feasibility is still quite good.

But in reality...

India + the island country, two countries that are not very reliable in the field of aerospace are engaged in manned lunar landings. It's terrifying to think about it.

Of course, not all countries are not optimistic.

Yuri, director of the Russian Space Agency, said that he would support the independent space program of Indian friends, and Russia could provide all the help for the Asia Star program.

India was very moved, and the director of the space agency said that he would visit Moscow soon for specific consultations.

The Aerospace Development Commission did not speak, knowing that the Russians were about to wield the Dragon Slaying Sword to slaughter the white elephant again, so they just watched the excitement quietly from the side.

…

On October 15, the Steadfast launched its fifth manned launch mission, sending eight tourists and two professional astronauts into space again.

The day before, the Long March 7A rocket arrived in Qiongzhou.

Its chief designer Feng Ruixing also went to the Qiongzhou launch site with the R&D team.

The basic Long March 7 is a one-and-a-half-stage configuration, and the Long March 7A that made its maiden flight this time is a three-and-a-half-stage configuration, with an additional third stage of the hydrogen-oxygen engine.

The Long March 7 of the original world line used seven YF100 liquid oxygen-kerosene engines with a takeoff thrust of 727 tons. It was originally launched in June this year.

The current improved version of the new Long March 7 has major changes in recovery mode and configuration.

First, during the development of the new Chang-7, in order to reduce the workload of the recovery control system, the core stage's 3.35-meter diameter rocket body only used one YF100K, while the four boosters of the same 3.35-meter diameter each carried two YF100Ks.

This leads to a problem. If the booster is recovered as a whole without separation, the booster's fuel will be consumed in just over 100 seconds, while the core stage, which stores the same amount of fuel, will still have more than half of the fuel left?

If the YF100K in the core stage is to continue to fly with the four heavy boosters, it will be finished. How heavy it is, and the carrying coefficient must be terrible.

So after careful consideration, Feng Ruixing made a decision. Since it is a whole recovery, the booster and the core stage fuel tanks are connected, and the first stage and the booster actually share the fuel tank as a whole.

This ensures that the 9 engines consume the same amount of fuel, and then shut down as a whole during separation until the core stage engine is started for recovery.

This is very similar to Lucia's "Proton" series rockets. You think the outside is a booster, but it is not.

In addition, there is the second-stage engine. It was originally planned to use four YF-115 oxygen-enriched staged combustion cycle liquid oxygen-kerosene engines, with a vacuum thrust of 18.75 tons and a total thrust of 75 tons.

YF115 has low thrust, low specific impulse, and low thrust-to-weight ratio. It can be said that its performance is terrible. Four YF115s can actually be replaced by one YF77. Moreover, the YF77 is a hydrogen-oxygen engine with a specific impulse of more than 400 seconds, which is far superior to the kerosene engine. If the YF77 is used as a secondary engine, the performance will be greatly improved.

But the problem is that the YF77 is unreliable!

The Long March 7 is to carry people, and it will be the main force of the future space agency to carry a new generation of manned spacecraft. It is absolutely not advisable to use the YF77 that exploded not long ago.

But Feng Ruixing really didn't want to reduce the pitiful carrying coefficient of the Long March 7, so in the last two months, he took the H80 hydrogen-oxygen engine bought by the space agency from Xinyuan and used it.

The H80 has a sea level thrust of 80 tons and a vacuum thrust of 112 tons, which is a bit larger, but the thrust is adjustable over a wide range and very stable, directly replacing four YF115s.

In this way, the basic two-and-a-half-stage Long March 7 has increased its carrying capacity from the original 20 tons to 25 tons. If it is not recovered, it can even reach 32 tons, which is similar to the old Long March 5.

Now the data of the Long March 7 is much better, and the launch cost has not increased. The average cost of ten launches is only 155 million yuan per launch, which is so cheap that the Space Administration is crying.

The model of the first flight this time is the Long March 7A, which adds a three-stage rocket using the YF75 hydrogen-oxygen engine on the second stage, with a single vacuum thrust of 8 tons. It carries a single mass of 2.8 tons, a total of three lunar orbit resource exploration satellites, namely "Laurel" 1 to 3.

These three satellites are jointly manufactured by Xinyuan and the Space Administration to explore the distribution of resources in the South Pole of the Moon and other places. Each satellite is equipped with a 1.5N high-thrust Hall thruster provided by Xinyuan, which can support multiple orbit change operations for flexible exploration missions.

Compared with the part-time "Queqiao", "Laurel" is much more professional.

Xinyuan originally planned to use the Xinyuan 5B rocket for the launch, but the China Aerospace Administration took care of it for free.

They also believed in the quality of the rockets produced by the China Aerospace Administration. At least there would be no problem with the launch. The hydrogen and oxygen engine in the second stage was made by Xinyuan, and the YF100K was also a cousin of the K120, so there would not be any major problems.