"Damn, the tractor factory never stops, does it?"

"That Lin guy is like he’s on an aphrodisiac, developing more new tricks in a few months than we do in ten years. He rolls out new rockets and shoots them off without even testing, and now he’s talking about recovery? Is this how we do aerospace?"

"If you ask me, the young ones need to taste some hardship..."

At Institute 8, He Tang and the leaders of Institute 6 hid in the office to watch the live broadcast of the New Yuan 1B launch.

Both were quite resentful, one with his cornerstones dug out by Lin Ju, the other with a project that got sideswiped and was being crushed in cost.

They were originally discussing the cost control issues of the YF100 after its minor modifications with CZ-9, but since they stumbled upon the launch broadcast, they simply joined the online audience, sneakily dissing Lin Ju all the while.

You said one thing, I said another, none of them complimentary. But Chief Designer Zhao suddenly thought of the astonishingly high performance of K120 and blurted out:

"What if the recovery is a success?"

"Success? You attended those dozens of seminars as well; haven’t we also researched rocket recovery for so many years? What’s the result? That path is a dead end. Wait until Cloud Ascend succeeds, and when the Aero-Space Plane comes out, they’ll know who’s on the right track. Reusable rockets are just a scam by an American businessman to swindle investors. The capitalists don’t get it, but don’t we know better?"

"What if—I’m just saying what if?"

"What if?" He Tang imagined it for a moment, then shuddered and shook his head vehemently.

"Impossible, this is only the first experiment. By the time they succeed, the Aero-Space Plane will be long out."

When will the Aero-Space Plane be out? The current plan in aerospace circles is for 2025, which means at least ten more years!

Chief Designer Zhao stopped talking and stared at the screen, lost in thought.

...

"Old An, tell me the truth, is this thing really reliable?"

Outside the launch site, Zhou Rui, dressed in a one-piece training suit, asked System Engineer Androff quietly.

"Of course, Zhou. The X1B employs the latest control technology; I have 101% confidence."

Androff, following his original trajectory, would certainly have been skeptical, but after the research institute adopted the Grade C recovery technology, he became extremely confident. No one understood the system better than they did.

Zhou Rui shook his head, thinking that the Russians seemed honest enough but turned out to be radical, pushing for a great leap forward in technology right here.

"Just wait, Zhou. There’s only 15 minutes left until launch. I have complete confidence in the rocket I designed."

"Good luck, Androff."

Inside the control room, Lin Ju had stopped interacting with netizens and was staring at the screen, his expression becoming more and more serious.

Although he had confidence in the system, the repeated failures of Sky Fork were still making him nervous. He knew, after all, that he had been reborn because of that rogue Starship that came crashing down.

On the screen next to him, the barrage of comments was still rapidly flickering. The viewer count had now surpassed 150,000; had there been a way to receive tips, they might have even earned the fuel money.

The stray liquid oxygen swirled and rose around New Yuan 1B, like dragons carved around a stone pillar, as if trying to burst through the skies.

"Countdown, thirty seconds!"

Since the rocket’s liftoff weight was only a hundred tons, the launch tower was just a simple base, and the rocket stood tall relying entirely on its own weight.

This first flight didn’t carry a payload; the second stage was a dummy model, and since the technology was the same as the second stage of New Yuan 1, they just decided to save some trouble.

"Fifteen seconds!"

In the live broadcast, the countdown at the lower left corner of the screen continued to tick, and on the launch trajectory at the bottom center, the icon representing the rocket was blinking a white light.

"Ten, nine, eight... three, two, one, ignition."

The live broadcast switched to the camera above the flame trench, and the engine at the center of the screen began to tremble as it was powered by hundreds of thousands of horsepower from the turbo pumps, spewing out an orange-yellow flame.

The throttle valve slowly increased pressure, and more and more fuel entered the combustion chamber. When it reached 75%, the engine’s thrust exceeded its own weight, and the rocket detached from the launch tower.

The screen was covered by a large swath of orange-yellow flame.

New Yuan 1B, dragging a flame twice its own length which gradually transitioned from orange-yellow to deep blue, ascended into the sky with extreme acceleration.

The launch control room was silent, everyone’s eyes unblinkingly focused on the rocket’s attitude, continuously reporting data from various sensors.

The comments in the live stream also quickly decreased. Everyone knew that the real drama was yet to come, and they were holding their breath in anticipation.

seconds after the rocket ignition, the first-stage engine shut down, and the second stage was jettisoned.

On the live broadcast’s UI, the simplified diagram of the rocket showed only a tiny bit of white representing the remaining fuel at the bottom.

As seen through the camera on top of the first stage, the four grid fins above unfolded and began to rotate.

At this point, as the rocket had entered its turn program after launch, the body’s posture lay horizontally, and it had to be righted quickly to avoid excessive lateral pressure that could deform it.

The rocket’s shell was thin. It could withstand great axial overload but was poor radially. If the posture became horizontal and out of control, entering a roll, it would be completely impossible to correct.

But the four grid fins rotated flexibly, allowing the rocket, which had begun a natural descent, to slowly swing toward a vertical orientation through aerodynamic pressure.

Since the engines at the bottom were heavy, and with only a little fuel left, the first stage’s center of gravity was very low. So once it became somewhat vertical, it could rely on gravity to return to equilibrium, needing only slight actions from the grid fins to maintain a stable posture without violent shaking.

This gravity-assisted descent was not any slower than the ascent. The rocket, initially at the edge of the atmosphere, saw its altitude decrease rapidly, with the numbers on the live broadcast screen dropping at an astonishing rate.

"It’s descending so fast, it must be unable to slow down and will crash."

He Tang, in front of the computer, calculated the descent rate in his mind, then saw the serious yet controlled expressions of everyone in the control room, and he was inwardly astonished.

When the altitude dropped to 7,000 meters, the ground tracking cameras had already captured a white dot.

The rocket’s attitude in free fall was just like during launch, only inverted.

5,000 meters, 3,000 meters, 2,000 meters, 1,200 meters, 1,100 meters.

The live broadcast showed two images: one from a ground camera that now clearly captured the entire rocket, and the other from a camera above the engines.

At 1,000 meters, the K120V ignited again.

In just two or three seconds, when the altitude dropped to 900 meters, observers outside the launch site could see the rocket spewing a long tail flame again.

In the live broadcast, the rate of descent finally began to slow, but it was still rapidly falling toward the ground.

He Tang was extremely surprised at this point, because New Yuan 1B had, indeed, successfully controlled the rocket’s descent near the landing field through the adjustment of its grid fins—a very impressive feat of technology.

The engines continued to work. At this point, the aerodynamic effect of the grid fins began to wane, but the rocket was still quite a distance from the center X of the landing point.

From the camera above the engines, the nozzle began to swing within a 25-degree range, nudging the slowly decelerating rocket toward the exact center of the landing field.

Lin Ju’s back had already left the sofa at this point, his eyes locked onto the increasingly stable rocket, feeling a growing sense of calm.

Just when he thought they were nearing success, the rocket’s attitude suddenly tilted sharply, almost lying horizontally as it accelerated downwards.

Everyone in the control room was startled, and He Tang, who was nervously sweating in front of his computer, instinctively shouted:

"Wind!"