Ma Yilong’s Falcon 9 failed to recover, but the staff at Sky Fork continued to eat and drink, casually rolling out another Falcon 9 to blow up once more.

When CZ-6R’s recovery from the Eighth Institute failed, the chief engineer led a self-critique—though he actually didn’t.

The top priority for everyone was still to find the cause, and just 12 hours later, they discovered the issue:

Good news: Sensor 01B was actually fine, and the quality inspection passed.

Bad news: It was a false alarm from the control system, a problem much bigger than a single sensor.

But for the Sixth Institute, this was entirely good news. The YF100K performed flawlessly during this long-duration multi-ignition mission. They bore no responsibility and it meant that their "recklessness" was also a success; they had conquered the technology for reusable engines in record time.

Tang Weitian: (•̀ω•́)y.

He Tang: /(ㄒoㄒ)/~~

The Eighth Institute didn’t have the ability to blow up a CZ-6 every month. Although they had the manufacturing capability, after all, the CZ-6 was just a project and hadn’t reached the stage of full resource allocation.

Moreover, China’s aerospace was renowned for its high success rate. If the CZ-6 started blowing up like SpecaX, the aerospace project success rate accumulated over twenty years would be dragged down by it alone.

The instant the CZ-6R’s failed recovery attempt became known to the higher-ups, they immediately directed that the problem be determined and experiences be gathered. There was no rush for success; completing the task by the stipulated time was sufficient.

What’s the stipulated time? That would be by the end of this year.

Given the production rate of the CZ-6, there were four more to be built by December. The Eighth Institute still had four chances.

So while the leadership’s facade was one of pleasantries and encouragement, failing to complete the task would be another matter entirely.

That evening, the news of the CZ-6 reusable’s first failed retrieval was leaked by official media, and videos of the Core Stage One crashing to the ground and exploding like fireworks also emerged online.

Luckily, this isn’t a "little notebook," otherwise He Tang would have had to bow at a 90-degree angle and privately sing "Masai."

New Yuan’s engineers looked at the posture before crashing that night and concluded that the control system’s poor parallel processing ability led to the misjudgment. The traditional approach was to cram as many possible scenarios as possible in advance, to prevent the system from making errors in on-the-fly judgments—this was Ma Yilong’s way, "gathering experience."

Yet the Falcon 9 has blown up so many times, how many times will CZ-6R need to blow up...

Forget it, let’s just watch the distant rockets, family.

A New Yuan 1A rocket was already mounted on a trailer, to be transported to the Selenium Chang Satellite Launch Center by special train.

There, it will be loaded with a scientific experiment satellite jointly developed by Abe University and Peking University, and launched into a low Earth orbit from here.

This is part of a cooperative project with Abe Aerospace. Abe only needs to pay five million US Dollars to send a 1.3-ton satellite into a low Earth orbit, just 3,000 US Dollars per kilogram, an international price without a better offer.

Although this rocket’s first stage had been reused over ten times, to match Abe’s status it was freshly painted, giving no hint it had been fired so many times.

From this friendly transaction, Lin Ju earned less than thirty million after deducting the fees for the use of the launch site and telemetry systems, barely enough to get by.

Up to now, New Yuan has received seven satellite launch commission intents, three from domestic universities, three from companies, and one left from Indonesia.

The last one was rejected by Lin Ju.

Indonesia’s space agency had built a television broadcasting satellite weighing over three tons, originally scheduled to be launched next year by the CZ-3B. Seeing the cheaper launch costs at New Yuan, they came to inquire.

Firstly, setting aside the fact that New Yuan didn’t have the capability to send such heavy satellites to geosynchronous orbit, Lin Ju couldn’t overlook Indonesia’s breach of contract and rejected them on the grounds of lack of capability.

The remaining six domestic satellites can be launched in one go, but we’ll have to wait until they all get their satellites in order first.

April 29th.

New Yuan City issued a notice two days in advance, implementing traffic control on certain routes due to the transportation of special cargo, and vehicles wishing to save time that day would need to take detours on those specific routes.

Escorted by four police cars and four motorcycles, the New Yuan-2 test rocket departed from the factory, en route to New Yuan Airport.

This rocket was not meant for launching but for testing purposes.

For a massive rocket weighing over a thousand tons like this one, extensive ground tests had to be conducted; for instance, constructing the shell first, filling the fuel tanks with water, and shaking it back and forth on the test stand to simulate the tremors of a launch in order to identify any flaws.

Of course, testing was already completed. This particular rocket was for simulating the aerial transport process.

Apart from being non-launchable, it was no different from a real rocket; hence, it was now time to rehearse the transfer route, the installation procedures aboard the transport plane, and the reception, assembly, and adjustment processes at the Qiongzhou Launch Site to prevent any damage to the real rocket due to a lack of experience.

With a length of over 70 meters, the rocket’s second and first stages were transported separately, with the first stage being the longest at 45 meters and 6 meters wide.

When the convoy escorting the New Yuan-2 appeared on the roads, countless people stopped their cars to take photos, exclaiming in awe at the thick body of the rocket.

If history had followed its original course, until the Space Administration’s planned first flight of the Long March 9 (CZ-9) in 2033, with a diameter of 10.6 meters, the New Yuan-2’s record of having the largest diameter in China at 6 meters would have remained unbroken.

Even the Long March 5 (CZ-5), which has a diameter of 5 meters and is strapped with four boosters, eight YF100 engines, and two YF77 engines, has a total weight of just over 800 tons, no match for the nearly 1,300-ton takeoff mass of the New Yuan-2.

Such a colossal object, even when lying quietly, exuded the sense of a mighty and powerful aerospace instrument.

One could hardly imagine how majestic it would look when erected and pointing towards the heavens.

"Goodness, this rocket is so huge, it’s taking up two lanes!"

"Which model of Long March is this? Such a big rocket must be capable of reaching the moon!"

"Didn’t you see the words on the covering? ’New Yuan Aeronautics power,’ oh my goodness, I saw the rocket they built last time too, it was only slightly wider than a semi-trailer and was transported by just one vehicle.

This rocket’s diameter is at least five or six meters; standing up, it must be as tall as a thirty-story building!"

"It seems I heard their boss talking about launching a space shuttle; is it with this one?"

"May it have an everlasting military fortune, everlasting military fortune!"

"..."

Not far from where two public buses had stopped, several leaders were also staring agape.

"When I first heard from New Yuan that they were building a 6-meter rocket, I thought it wasn’t a big deal, but this is just too exaggerated on the road, twice as big as our country’s largest rocket!"

"More than that, the launch mass is 1,270 tons, capable of sending 45 tons of cargo into space, more than three times that of the Space Administration’s most powerful rocket!"

"Sheesh~" An upper-level cadre who had come down from the provincial government for an inspection was also shocked speechless; he had learned the significance of the New Yuan-2 through several city leaders and felt that the province’s support for such a behemoth enterprise was still too little.

"For such a super enterprise, the province should provide key support, not skimping on the slightest policy favoritism. We must make Sichuan the strongest aerospace manufacturing base in China!"

Almost as if sent off by the collective will of the citizens, the first stage of New Yuan-2 finally arrived at New Yuan Airport. A prepared crane team would attach fairings to both ends of Core Stage One, adopting an elliptical posture for an Il-76 to carry it to Qiongzhou.