Texas, America.

With the blessing of cash-flows, SpaceX successfully fulfilled Ma’s expectations by producing one Falcon 9 rocket per month.

Less than 28 days since the last rocket explosion, the Falcon 9 of December soared into the sky once again, carrying with it Ma Yilong’s hopes.

Three minutes later, the Falcon 9, just 10 meters from landing, suddenly malfunctioned and rapidly tilted towards a nearby stack of warehouses, destroying millions of dollars’ worth of spare parts inside.

The American soldiers at the Air Force base were not surprised by this, and a group of ground crew even placed bets, now busy distributing their staked money.

Ma sat in his Tesla sports car, ungracefully crossing his legs, and his carefully styled hair was in complete disarray. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

In stark contrast to him, XAP (the acronym in English for New Yuan Aeronautics Power) completed its first sea recovery experiment, and although it ended up falling into the sea due to a significant deviation point and the director was ready to move the camera away, it was still a success, right?

Now, the core stage of the New Yuan 1B has been nicknamed the "model worker," having been launched and recovered five times consecutively, fully demonstrating that the recycling technology has matured.

Even more sickening was the massive trade deal between Abe and China, worth billions of dollars for New Yuan alone.

However, the H1 and H2 type spaceplanes announced by New Yuan left him somewhat bewildered. Weren’t those outdated technologies? With high costs and low safety, the Dragon Spaceship and Starship were the future.

Even though he had no idea when his future would arrive...

Fortunately, after the success of New Yuan 1B, the patience of Sky Fork investors had also improved, which was a trivial benefit for the laggards.

Ma also tried to coax New Yuan, and after hearing that Lin Ju had studied in America and had American friends, he even tried to use these connections for a capital exchange. However, the latter, knowing nothing about economics, clung to his shares like a farmer clinging to his land, refusing to let go.

Later, executives from Sky Fork privately approached a Chinese-American engineer, hoping to infiltrate New Yuan and acquire some key technologies.

Ma was not happy about it but did not stop it; however, the outcome was quite unexpected.

The engineer was hired, then disappeared without a trace, cutting off all communication with them...

Meanwhile, at New Yuan Aeronautics, the System Research Institute gained an apprentice +1, followed by a C-grade materials engineer +1.

This engineer, who returned to China and requested to join New Yuan Aeronautics, had many flaws, but New Yuan’s HR department didn’t care in the least; as long as one was skilled, they were in.

Once they joined the R&D department and signed the contract, they were recognized as one of their own by the system certification.

The number of people who joined New Yuan with ulterior motives had already reached seven or eight, but all were one-way trips.

As for those attempting to woo New Yuan employees to defect? Then these forces would discover that even the Security Department had joined the R&D department... a clear indication of Lin Ju’s high regard for talent.

Inside the Xinyuan Company’s final assembly hangar, a Drawing 154 aircraft was slowly pushed in after being dismantled.

Thanks to the generous assistance of Crown Prince Hamand, the Drawing 154, which was used for astronaut training, had lost its purpose and was dismantled and sent to the New Distant Factory.

It would serve its final value as a platform for air testing after being converted by New Yuan.

The Drawing 154 had two engines at the tail and a central engine at the rear. One engine could be completely removed and replaced with a proprietary aircraft engine for testing, while the remaining two original engines could guarantee a safe landing even if only one was functional.

Its airframe also held research value, allowing the institute to gain practical experience in aircraft design.

However, the current fate of the Drawing 154 was a comprehensive inspection, refurbishment, and modernization of electrical upgrades; there was no new engine available for testing just yet.

But this wouldn’t be completed this year, as Xinyuan Company was about to go on holiday too.

After all, with the exception of four system people, the rest were confirmed Earthlings, and not taking time off for the New Year was out of the question.

To celebrate the New Year, New Yuan Aeronautics also had its own festivities planned.

At this moment, the Qiongzhou launch site is about to witness its first and second launches.

Two rockets have been erected at the four launch pads, one is the New Yuan 1B, and the other is the New Yuan 1C.

One first stage has been recovered seven times, the other four times; both are undoubtedly veteran rockets.

The New Yuan 1B had been painted in a festive red, one side adorned with the logo and lettering of Southern Automobiles, and the other side with this year’s flagship model from the brand, the CS75 Automatic Luxury Edition.

It is also Lin Ju’s vehicle.

The car registered under Lin Ju’s name was still that broken Jetta collecting dust in the factory; he usually rode the company’s business vehicles instead, at the same level as technology executives with Mercedes-Benz business cars and Audi A6s.

After striking a deal with Southern Automobiles, they gifted him a CS75 with a specially luxurious interior, an automatic SUV.

Perhaps out of expectations for domestic products, Lin Ju readily accepted; he wasn’t very sensitive about cars and found this one discreet and easy for travel.

After all, he had become quite famous by now, and it was just a good thing that short videos hadn’t taken off, or else it would have been too embarrassing to be gawked at like a monkey and put up on the internet.

Even when he wanted to visit a street food stall, after several attempts, he compromised to have someone else do a takeaway instead. Driving a domestic car worth merely over a hundred thousand yuan, dressed down, and keeping a low profile made it much easier for him to hide his identity.

"Mr. Lin, your New Yuan Company is truly a space company. I heard that the rockets are filled with fireworks, those that will be set off on New Year’s Eve?"

"It’s company culture..."

To celebrate the upcoming New Year, engineers from New Yuan Company’s solid-fuel department specially referred to fireworks formulas and madly designed a significant 18-ton upper stage.

The stage on top of that New Yuan 1C was not a second stage but a giant fireworks canister.

According to the engineers, even the body of the canister was combustible, creating a super-bright flame due to the combustion of metallic compounds when it exploded.

The fully fueled first stage would carry this giant fireworks canister to an altitude of 5,000 meters, then detach and land on its own.

The fireworks canister would be ignited at a descent to 2,000 meters, brightening the night sky with its glow.

Of course, this extremely violent and beautiful plan was impossible to pass the launch site’s procedures, but the mission filed for approval claimed to send a fuel canister to low-earth orbit, preparing for space refueling technology.

Look, it makes sense that I failed to launch and the fuel exploded in the air, right?

This matter was an open secret, but since the fuel was clean and it was over the sea, after paying a 5 million ocean environmental protection fee, it was tacitly approved.

The ownership of Southern Automobile’s rocket was entirely theirs; the name was simple, just called Southern Automobile Number.

From the unrestrained smile on Chen Jun’s face, it was clear he must have received praise—senior leaders would be present tomorrow to personally oversee the launch.

Moreover, Southern Automobile sold the rocket’s capacity quite cunningly. They managed to establish a relationship with a university, letting its satellite go ahead without waiting for next year’s CZ-6, all for the price of some technology patent licensing.

All in all, Southern Automobile successfully played the role of a greedy middleman, making easy money from both sides.

However, Lin Ju didn’t care; it was just a bit of money, considered part of expanding the private market.

On January 17th, at 20:00 in the evening, the Southern Automobile Number rocket launched, carrying a satellite from a northern university.

The flare from the tail lit up half the sky, and as this was Qiongzhou Launch Site’s inaugural launch, a large group of local leaders, space agency directors, and the Southern Automobile team all gathered together to watch the rocket launch.

There were also numerous netizens and TV station teams present.

Southern Automobile claimed the rocket was co-developed with the university and New Yuan, and everyone just sort of believed it.

As the control center announced the successful entry of the satellite into the 500-kilometer sun-synchronous orbit, Lin Ju simultaneously began to sweet-talk the senior leaders of Southern Automobile.