The New Yuan-2 prototype rocket was transported to Qiongzhou Launch Site, a spectacle so grand that it couldn’t be hidden from the public, essentially announcing the birth of another heavy rocket.

The New Yuan-2 marks several historical firsts:

Asia’s first heavy rocket with a liftoff weight exceeding 1000 tons;

Asia’s first rocket (since Russia currently lacks the capacity to produce heavy rockets);

Asia’s first rocket to use a liquid oxygen and methane engine;

Asia’s largest core stage diameter rocket (not counting the Proton Rocket’s core stage);

The world’s first practical large thrust liquid oxygen and methane engine, the M220;

The most powerful rocket owned by a private space company in the world;

The heaviest recoverable launch vehicle in the world;

The world’s first recoverable rocket to use grid fins for support during recovery;

...

Especially the imposing sight of the Il-76 carrying the New Yuan-2 prototype, which appeared even larger than the aircraft itself, drove countless aerospace enthusiasts wild.

The only flight operation that can compare is the Union’s Antonov An-225 ultra-heavy transport aircraft transporting the Blizzard Spacecraft, which is a similarly spectacular sight.

In comparison to the Il-76, the An-225 is undoubtedly a giant, with a maximum takeoff weight of 640 tons, capable of carrying over 200 tons on its back, and another 200 plus tons in its cargo hold, making it the world’s largest transport aircraft from the moment of its creation.

Huh, should I buy the An-225 now?

Lin Ju noted this in his mind, planning to get in touch with Antonov when he had the chance.

He unlocked his Chrysanthemum mate7 with his fingerprint, the Zun Jue edition that was just released last September, supporting dual 4G SIM cards and equipped with the HiSilicon Kirin 925 processor.

Feeling a bit nostalgic for the era of full screens, Lin Ju opened his blog to find, as expected, an endless stream of backend messages.

His personal account had already surpassed one million followers, but Lin Ju mostly shared messages from the official New Yuan social media account, rarely posting himself.

With the announcement of the New Yuan-2 prototype rocket transport, countless people @mentioned him.

Lin Ju shook his head, took a photo of the partially assembled New Yuan-2 rocket, which was actually ready for launch in the assembly building, with the caption "New Yuan-2, ready to strike!" and sent it out before turning off his phone.

Today is May 8th, and the New Yuan-2 prototype had already reached the Qiongzhou Launch Site, having just completed rocket body tests and simulated assembly procedures.

The first air transport to the site was a bit chaotic, wasting quite a bit of time on procedural matters, but thankfully, there were no issues with the rocket, and the assembly in the Qiongzhou facility was quick and steady.

So the New Yuan-2 Remote 1 rocket will switch to air transport, no longer waiting for the frustrating river-to-sea transport.

The Space Agency’s manufacturing base is in Jingu, where rockets are shipped directly to Qiongzhou; New Yuan, located inland, needs to be loaded onto riverboats from a tributary of the Yangtze River, then transferred to seagoing vessels at the river’s mouth to reach Qiongzhou, which is extremely inconvenient.

The Air Force’s Il-76 crews are very skilled, and as long as there are no complex weather conditions, the risk is actually about the same as sea transport.

Not far from him, Androff was supervising the loading of a large, non-standard part.

The second stage of the New Yuan-2 rocket has a diameter of 6 meters, and as the tail of the H1 spacecraft is not a standard circular shape, it requires aerodynamic connectors for transition.

Androff utilized this space to design the escape system.

Under normal circumstances, it served as the connector between the spacecraft and the rocket. However, if there were any issues with the rocket, the explosive bolts at the bottom would activate the system to separate the spacecraft from the rocket, and then the solid rocket engine would start in less than 0.1 seconds, pushing the spacecraft away from the rocket at the highest speed and into a high-altitude trajectory.

At this point, the escape system would disengage, and the astronauts, if they reacted in time, could manually adjust the spacecraft. In case of an accident, ground control could remotely command or the computer could automatically adjust the spacecraft to stabilize it before seeking an airport for landing.

After all, the memory of America’s space shuttle accidents was still fresh; the last shuttle was retired only in 2010. Preparing for such contingencies was considered necessary.

Once the escape system was installed, Androff ran over to Lin Ju’s side:

"Boss, the design for the New Yuan Five Family and New Yuan Six has been completed. Shall we start manufacturing prototype rockets?"

System Engineers had proposed enriching the range of New Yuan rockets by developing rockets of various classes long ago, but the plans had been repeatedly deferred until now when they finally presented a solution.

New Yuan Five Family:

New Yuan 5A, a base model with a 3.5-meter-diameter rocket body and a three-stage design. The core stage equipped with one K380 liquid oxygen kerosene engine, with a liftoff thrust of 384 tons, maximum liftoff mass of 316 tons, LEO payload capacity of 7.9 tons, with a recoverable first stage;

New Yuan 5B: Based on the base model, it is bound with two 2.5-meter-diameter boosters, each with one K120 engine, which is the Core Stage One version of the New Yuan-1, with a maximum liftoff thrust of 628 tons, a maximum liftoff mass of 508 tons, LEO payload capacity of 14 tons, both boosters and core stage are recoverable;

New Yuan 5B: Bundled with four 2.5-meter boosters, liftoff thrust of 880 tons, maximum liftoff mass of 770 tons, LEO payload capacity of 21 tons.

New Yuan Six: A 3.5-meter-diameter, four-stage solid rocket, with a first stage equipped with one S85 solid rocket engine, liftoff thrust of 85 tons, liftoff mass of 50 tons, LEO payload capacity of 500 kilograms.

Among these, the New Yuan Five Family is a multi-purpose recoverable modular rocket covering medium to large launch missions, while New Yuan Six is a solid rocket capable of rapid deployment for emergency launch requests.

According to the original plan, H1 could actually be launched by the slightly smaller New Yuan 5B, which would have been perfectly adequate without wasting thrust. However, for the sake of speed, the full-flow kerosene engine K380 from the Core Stage One was problematic, hence the choice of the heavy-lift rocket New Yuan-2 powered by a methane engine.

Of course, it’s also possible that the System Engineers were overconfident and wanted bigger toys, and Lin Ju went along with the idea somewhat willingly.

Although New Yuan Six is an undeniable single-use small rocket, its simple manufacturing and short production cycle make it very suitable for urgent demands. It can go from assembly to launch in just 4 hours at the shortest.

Of course, the main purpose is to verify the parent engine of the S80 series, the system’s own S700, a 5-meter-diameter single-stage solid rocket engine with a 700-ton thrust!

Solid rocket engines are completely different from traditional liquid rocket engines; their fuel is cylindrical and solid, and the combustion proceeds from the center outward.

This results in a characteristic that allows solid rocket engines to be stacked on top of each other, increasing the burning surface area when connected in series, and thereby multiply the thrust exponentially.

When connected in series, the thrust increases by multiples.

America’s space shuttle solid rocket boosters are made by connecting four individual 300-ton solid rocket units, providing a total thrust of 1200 tons.

If the S700 were also stacked in four sections, the total rocket thrust would be a staggering 2800 tons.

The Core Stage One of the colossal New Yuan No. 4 rocket only produces a total thrust of 6500 tons with its 27 engines, but combining four such boosters would give a total thrust of 11200 tons!

That’s just theoretical, however, as solid rocket engine thrust is nearly impossible to adjust, and no binding structure could withstand the sudden eruption of ten thousand tons of thrust.

A three-stack booster with a thrust of 2100 tons is more than sufficient if bound in pairs, which is basically the limit of current materials science.

Thus, solid rockets are a shortcut to high thrust, with the only downside being their exorbitant cost. Even though they can be recovered and refilled, the fuel itself is what’s expensive.

Lin Ju approved the proposal, but even so would have to wait until B-level Base was fully operational before they had the resources to proceed—it would be considered a technical reserve for now...