Ultimately, New Yuan reached partnerships with several universities, including two key "985" institutions.

However, the most comfortable of them all was the Southern Machinery Institute, which clung desperately to New Yuan’s coattails.

Although their overall strength was not the strongest, they gave the most, almost entirely dependent on their association with New Yuan.

There was no helping it; there were satellite rockets and even sending people into space. Lin Ju too felt their sincerity. Besides, the previous collaborations had been deep, with the majority of their research-capable staff hanging their hats at New Yuan.

If it weren’t for the sign that still declared it a public institution, outsiders might suspect it was a subsidiary school of New Yuan.

Lin Ju was decisive. All professors of the Aerospace Institute were given a promotion card, effectively turning them into staunch System people, affiliated with the System Research Institute, and began servicing New Yuan.

Though the institute was not slated to begin formal classes until the following September semester, these professors and teachers could not remain idle. Those who were available went to the New Distant Factory to undertake research and development tasks for double stipends, and even those who were busy teaching had work on the side.

It’s necessary to put capable scholars under more pressure.

On Tomb-Sweeping Day in April, Lin Ju stood in front of his father’s grave, throwing stacks of joss paper printed with the image of the Jade Emperor from the 86 version of Journey to the West into the fire.

Considering the increasing denominations of the joss paper as the years went by, with factories showing less restraint, Lin Ju, who feared his father might not have enough to spend, brought an entire carload of the paper money, even receiving a warning for mixed cargo transportation along the way.

"Boss, Boss?"

Amid his melancholy from being reborn and having lost his father, Lin Ju was awakened by his assistant’s call. He then realized that, due to the sheer amount of money he had thrown, the glass of the photo frame on the headstone had turned black from smoke.

"Dad!"

The assistant handed him an opened fire extinguisher.

After putting down the fire extinguisher he had brought in the car, Lin Ju dutifully kowtowed to his father, then carefully wiped off the soot from the glass.

Thankfully, it hadn’t cracked.

"Hu Bo, I think burning joss paper is a bad habit. If my father has a spirit in heaven, I’m sure he’d stop me. We can’t do this again."

"Yes, the old Factory Director always emphasized environmental protection."

...

On April 6, the seven liquid oxygen and methane staged combustion cycle engines needed for the New Yuan-2 were all completed.

At the same time, two six-meter diameter core stage rocket bodies were nearing completion, with both expected to be assembled by May 17. They then would be transported by river and sea, arriving at the Qiongzhou Wenchang Launch Site on May 29, to choose an opportunity for launch between June 1 and 2.

New Yuan-2 was too large; its liftoff thrust exceeded 1600 tons, with a launch mass of about 1400 tons. There was no large launch facility inland capable of launching her.

Xinyuan’s own launch site had not yet been completed, so they were still benefitting from the Space Agency’s facilities, considering it experience for the future CZ-5 launches. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

The recovery landing site, however, was finished. It was the first and fastest completed part of the Xinyuan Launch Site.

By the way, the Mukala Launch Site in Saudi Arabia had just completed site selection and location determination, with the domestic construction team just beginning to load the ships.

The Qiongzhou Launch Site had already received the transportation information for New Yuan-2, after which the Launch Management Bureau went into a frenzy.

Last time, New Yuan-1 had a liftoff weight of less than 100 tons. New Yuan-2 was 1400 tons? Even the CZ-5 wasn’t that big!

Deputy Director Huang personally called to inquire, and in not so many words actually expressed one concern:

"The launch site is yours to use, and we can’t refuse you, but such a large rocket, once fully fueled, will have over a thousand tons of fuel. If it explodes, that launch position is as good as ruined. Can New Yuan hurriedly cobble something together that’s truly reliable?"

Lin Ju naturally guaranteed that the New Yuan-2 would absolutely not explode, at least not on the launch tower.

But now he was getting anxious too because maritime transport had severely affected the schedule for the rocket launch.

Each cycle of recovery, return, refurbishment, and loading onto the ship, even at the ship’s fastest turnaround speed, would take a month; at most two launches per month.

The reliability of the New Yuan-2 No. 1 verification rocket would be tested at the beginning of June; by the end of June, the No. 2 rocket would carry the space shuttle on an unmanned flight; in mid-July, the No. 3 rocket would take the space shuttle on another unmanned flight, and only at the end of July or early August could the first manned launch mission be attempted.

Here was the problem, there were too many variables in-between, and the schedule was almost up against the system’s mandated time limit, leaving at best a 25-day buffer.

If there happened to be a typhoon or something, and the shipment of rockets was halted for half a month, it would be over.

A fierce storm in Qiongzhou meant a launch delay as well.

However, the two unmanned flights were non-negotiable; even letting the first New Yuan-2 carry the space shuttle was not an option, because the first truly crew-capable H1 would not be completed until June and wouldn’t make the transfer to the rocket.

Land transport was also out of the question; the 6-meter diameter New Yuan-2 wouldn’t fit through tunnels, with the maximum rocket diameter that can pass through tunnels capped at 3.5 meters—anything more is truly impossible.

Transportation by road, although possible, would deal with special cargo, and the road management bureaus would definitely not permit such continuous operations, because of the great impact on traffic.

What about air transport... air transport?

Lin Ju had the system engineers analyze the feasibility. New Yuan just happened to have two Drawing 154 aircraft. If it could carry the H1, could it carry the New Yuan-2?

The answer was... no.

The first stage of New Yuan-2 alone, with its 7 liquid oxygen and methane engines, weighed nearly 10 tons, and the core stage one had an empty weight of 39 tons, which already exceeded the maximum payload capacity of Drawing 154.

Removing the engines wouldn’t help either; even the 39-ton shell alone was too heavy. Since the tail engine air inlet of Drawing 154 was on top, resulting in a tall back support to avoid affecting the air intake, a change in the center of gravity due to the 39-ton mass would definitely lead to catastrophic failure.

To consider air transportation, a heavy transport aircraft with a maximum take-off weight of over 200 tons was necessary, such as Russia’s IL-76MD, An-124, An-225, China’s Y-20, America’s C17, C5, and other large transport planes.

Of course, aside from these, some large commercial airliners could also work, like the Airbus A380 and Boeing 747, and it might even be more cost-effective to maintain and use them, with a lower cost per use. They could also be used to bring the staff out for team building when not in service.

Although meteorologists at the launch site had mentioned that typhoons would not pass through until the end of August to September, Lin Ju still didn’t dare to gamble, for accidents were all too common.

For aircraft, there was no choice; they had to be large and needed a special cargo route application, obviously the best choice was to contact the Air Force.

Through Ulanha Mountain Airport, New Yuan successfully contacted senior Air Force officials and hoped to lease a transport aircraft for rocket transport.

The military gave high priority to New Yuan’s request, especially since Lin Ju was willing to pay a high lease price of 200 million yuan per year, and promptly reported it up the chain.

Eventually, the superiors agreed to lease a IL-76MD transport plane of their own for New Yuan-Qiongzhou route, with rapid review approval for special clearance and their own flight crew included.

China had plenty of IL-76 aircraft, and one was directly repositioned from the Western Military Region for a direct flight to New Yuan City Airport, where it would undergo modifications.

Transporting New Yuan-2 from the factory to the airport was also straightforward; although it was oversized, it was still within New Yuan City, and the local leadership would facilitate a green light escort with no problems.

It was the same for Qiongzhou, thus reducing the rocket transportation time from at least 10 days to within 3 days, leaving plenty of time for adjustments.