Chen Jun subtly expressed this idea, and Lin Ju responded with complete understanding.

So you just want to spend less money but look like a big shot, huh?

That’s easy. Just repaint the twice-recycled New Yuan 1B first-stage rocket, attach a new second stage, and launch some trivial payload.

The price is cheap too, as long as the recovery is successful, the cost is less than 5 million, let’s quote 10 million.

This price is totally within Chen Jun’s acceptable range. 10 million for a rocket launch is like a promotional expense. It’s incredibly cheap.

The two parties quickly struck a deal. Given the production capacity of the New Yuan 1B, delivery could be made within a month, and the launch could take place before the New Year, bringing good fortune to the company’s upper management.

The collaboration was agreed upon quickly, but Lin Ju did not see the client out, nor was Chen Jun in a rush to leave.

The latter wanted to take a closer look at New Yuan Aerospace to understand the workings of a private space company.

As for Lin Ju, he was thinking of how he could siphon more money out of Southern Automobile.

Southern Automobile is really something now, with sales, technology, capital, and connections.

If they were to purchase New Yuan’s BMS and later join the intelligent driving project, they could bear the research costs without worrying about market access.

Lin Ju spent half a day accompanying Chen Jun on a leisurely stroll through the non-sensitive areas, with Chen constantly marveling at all the novelties.

Lin Ju casually remarked,

"It seems the country is pushing for the promotion of new energy vehicles now, and Southern Automobile must be involved in that, right?"

"Yes, but now is not the right time," Chen Jun seemed disinterested,

"Neither the market environment nor the technology is mature at present. Have you seen those who brag? They’re all scamming for subsidies, producing a few dozen cars and colluding with dealers to fabricate transactions of tens of thousands of units, easily pocketing seven to eight hundred million in subsidies.

No one is really working on the technology. We’re researching it. The tech guys have said that electric vehicles represent a new standard system, and right now, it’s still more worthwhile to figure out hybrids."

Chen Jun, perhaps buoyed by his good mood, shared several examples of insurance and subsidy fraud within the industry. Anyone with industry knowledge could see the irregularities, but astonishingly, these blatantly flawed operations were successful.

This was the first time Lin Ju had learned so much about the secrets of the industry, and it was starting to give him ideas.

The battery technology from Byadi and Jude wasn’t as effective as it would be later on, and there was no mature BMS system on the market. New energy vehicles were still in their growth phase.

Though Chen Jun said that many aspects were not quite right, the biggest issues were still the performance of new energy vehicles and the intelligent driving systems that future generations would rely on.

By solving these two issues, new energy vehicles would inevitably encroach on the traditional market share.

Moreover, entering the market now could capitalize on the first-mover advantage. A few years later, when the era becomes chaotic—especially when numerous internet companies enter the fray with capital—the progress in electric vehicle technology would be rapid, making it hard for traditional manufacturers to catch up.

But for now, Lin Ju kept these thoughts close to his chest. He would wait for New Yuan’s BMS to yield results before discussing collaboration. For now, he focused on fostering the relationship.

Potential partner +1.

...

From the end of November through December, New Yuan finally seemed to settle down in the eyes of the public, without any big news.

The only publicly disclosed launch hasn’t even started yet, New Yuan has purchased a tugboat and modified it into a sea launch platform, and is now rushing to the South Sea to prepare for the sea-based rocket recovery testing.

But in reality, New Yuan Aerospace has been extremely busy internally during this time.

The R&D department is one by one sorting through the obtained system technologies, adjusting them into specific projects, and modifying the rocket configuration.

In addition to this, they need to expand their staff by 100 employees, and use upgrade cards to enhance the skills of those with potential.

Due to a wealth of new technologies acquired, the rocket for the H1 spaceplane, New Yuan-2, was essentially scrapped and started over.

The new specifications are as follows:

The full rocket has a diameter of 6 meters, a height of 75 meters, and uses a two-stage design.

The first stage will be equipped with seven 220-ton class liquid oxygen and methane engines, with six on the outer circle and one in the center, providing a ground thrust of 1540 tons. The second stage will have a single 50-ton class liquid oxygen and hydrogen engine, giving it a low Earth orbit payload capacity of up to 45 tons, and the first stage is designed to be recoverable.

The methane engine series starts with M, focusing on low cost. The M220 is a simplified version of the 300-ton class staged-combustion liquid oxygen and methane engine, reducing weight and volume to fit seven engines into a 6-meter diameter rocket body.

The reason methane engines are chosen over kerosene engines is that the technology for large thrust methane engines using staged combustion is simpler than the K series full flow kerosene engines, allowing faster production.

The research institute decided to complete the development in just four months, which is no small feat of confidence.

New Yuan-2 is expected to be able to be reused up to thirty times; after five reuses, the cost of each launch will be 30% that of a disposable launch, at only 130 million, with the average cost per kilogram of payload being less than 4000 RMB.

Even accounting for telemetry, transportation, and other expenses, it won’t exceed 4200 RMB.

And among these, the largest cost is the second-stage oxygen-hydrogen rocket engine; hydrogen engines and liquid hydrogen fuel are indeed expensive.

New Yuan No. 3 was then remodeled into a massive rocket:

The first stage has a diameter of 11 meters, and the second and third stages have diameters of 11 meters as well, with a height of 116 meters, adopting a three-stage rocket design.

The first stage is equipped with nineteen 380-ton class liquid oxygen kerosene rocket engines arranged in a 12+6+1 layout from the outside to the inside. The second stage has four 240-ton class liquid oxygen and hydrogen engines H240, giving a total ground thrust of 7300 tons, a low Earth orbit payload capacity of 270 tons, a Moon orbit payload capacity of 130 tons, and a Mars orbit payload capacity of 60 tons.

This is a rocket prepared for lunar landings, also recoverable 20 times, but the average launch cost still soars to a full 400 million RMB. The third stage rocket will be replaced with an H2 spaceplane for moon landing missions.

There’s already a draft for the lunar landing plan. The H2, with a maximum takeoff weight of 100 tons and an empty weight of only 40 tons, will have its cargo bay equipped with living quarters and a Moon lander, keeping the total weight controlled at around 95 tons, capable of carrying 7 astronauts.

Sending such a heavy spaceplane completely to the Moon and back to Earth has its costs. Traditional engines consume too much fuel and are impractical, so it is expected to be fitted with a nuclear thermal rocket engine, which is very fuel-efficient, and which is expected to cost over 300 million RMB for a 10-ton class.

It can only be said that engineers with both money and technology have begun to indulge in their dreams, but Lin Ju still approved it, as the research plans for the latter two are on a two-year deadline, allowing time for adjustments.

Additionally, there are the turbofan parts disassembled from the 90KN combined power engine, which after evaluation, are considered to have potential for two different modifications.

The best modification is to serve as engines for fighter and bomber jets because this temporarily named XW-9 turbofan engine, according to the system description, can propel an aircraft to an altitude of 33,300 meters with a Mach number reaching a full 3.4.

After being singled out to make a small bypass ratio aero-engine, during afterburning, the thrust reaches an impressive 13.9 tons with a thrust-to-weight ratio of 10.6, and it can continuously operate for 40 minutes, allowing a fighter jet under 40 tons to easily reach 3 Mach.

The second modification is to increase the bypass ratio, lowering the maximum speed in exchange for cutting the afterburner to serve as an engine for science or transport planes, with a single-engine thrust of 15 tons and a fuel consumption rate of 0.52, which is quite efficient in its class.

The manufacturing costs for both engines range from 15 to 25 million RMB per unit, while the selling price for the equivalent class of engines is around 5 million US dollars for the former and under 20 million US dollars for the latter, clearly providing a very high profit.

The BMS battery management system has also been modified to its original plan, and the research team is selecting an automobile platform, waiting for the right moment to conduct tests.