"The New Yuan No.2 Remote 1 rocket launch mission is scheduled for May 26 at Qiongzhou Wenchang Launch Site No. 1 Work Station."

On the morning of May 16, New Yuan’s official Weibo and website released the news simultaneously.

At 6 a.m. on May 17, a convoy composed of two semi-trailer trucks departed from the former New Yuan City Tractor Factory, now the New Yuan City Logistics Development Zone.

The security measures for this transport were higher than the last, as everyone knew that this rocket, unlike the one half a month ago, was the real deal, and no mishaps could occur.

Given that New Yuan Airport didn’t have a high passenger volume, it simply made sense to shut down most of the roads entirely, isolating them to ensure the smooth transfer of New Yuan-2.

Among the vehicles in the convoy was one from the Sichuan Tourism Bureau.

They had paid 10 million in a "friendly deal" for the rights to New Yuan No.2 Remote 1’s livery, planning to cover the rocket with bamboo and pandas – the emblems that Sichuan never ceased to promote...

As someone from Sichuan who rode pandas to school as a child, Lin Ju could never understand what was so attractive about such decorations.

New Yuan Airport had specifically set aside an area to ensure the rocket hoisting would not be affected by other activities.

The IL-76 was scheduled to fly twice, today and tomorrow, delivering the first and second stages to Qiongzhou. As for the fairing, it could be taken apart and simply stuffed into the cargo hold.

Lin Ju climbed up into the transport plane himself; this was the rocket that would herald a new era for New Yuan – he would not be at ease unless he kept watch over it around the clock.

Meanwhile, at the Eighth Academy.

He Tang received a phone call and announced that evening:

"The New Yuan No.2 Remote 1 rocket will launch on the 26th. The Aerospace Bureau has allowed all academies to send observers. Who wants to go?"

A forest of hands shot up.

"There are only twenty spots, but you can bring family members!"

Still, a forest of hands.

The same scene unfolded across all the research institutes under the Aerospace Bureau. After all, this was China’s first heavy rocket, and it was New Yuan Aeronautics; even the big shots from the Aerospace Bureau had been invited.

The Deng Lei trio wasn’t going – they had to intensify their training. But Li Wei and several members of the astronaut team accepted the invitation.

Moreover, upon the news release, countless others wanted to witness the launch of the rocket bearing so many number one titles.

How many exactly? Just on May 16 alone, ticket sales for Qiongzhou Airlines soared by 40,000.

In this off-peak tourist season, Sanya Airlines seized the opportunity, decisively increasing the ticket prices to peak-season rates, while also requiring the in-flight sale items to switch from handicrafts to space-related merchandise.

By May 25, the cumulative number of tourists who had arrived in Wenchang to watch the launch had surpassed 140,000.

Numerous personnel from the space science and technology and defense industries arrived, but unlike the tourists who could only watch from a distance on the beach, they were seated in the guest area.

Moreover, among the tourists entering Qiongzhou, there were more than a thousand foreigners, nearly half of whom were Islanders living relatively comfortable lives.

The locals were accustomed to this; the Islanders always paid excessive attention to their neighbors.

On the afternoon of May 25, the New Yuan-2 Remote 1 rocket, which had been assembled in the final assembly building, was slowly towed by the transport vehicle towards the launch tower.

What the onlookers saw first... was a line of large characters on the rocket body that read "Beautiful Capital Welcomes You", the name of New Yuan-2 was only on the back.

Besides that, the rocket was completely coated with paint, composed of green bamboo, a white background, and cartoon pandas.

But this did not affect the impressiveness of the New Yuan-2, which stood a towering 75 meters tall after assembly, over twenty stories high, while the CZ-2F, including the Escape Tower, was only 49 meters.

With a diameter of 6 meters and standing 75 meters high, the New Yuan-2 on the launch tower resembled a slender arrow pointed at the sky; even tourists on the beach several kilometers away could see it clearly and feel the awe of a heavy-lift rocket.

The ground segment of this launch mission was jointly organized by New Yuan and the aerospace bureau, since the former lacked experience with ground monitoring systems, and the latter had never dealt with the launch of a rocket nearing 1300 tons.

In the launch control room, a host of big shots were seated together.

Tang Weitian flipped through New Yuan’s mission procedures, incessantly shaking his head, occasionally staring at Lin Ju as if he were looking at a monster.

He was thinking: Young people these days have no sense of propriety.

A rocket as big as New Yuan-2, built just like that?

And a 20-ton spaceplane, for a rocket with a 45-ton capacity - isn’t that a waste?

Academician She sat next to the big shots, sharing his experience at the New Distant Factory.

Lin Ju, knowing that such a big shot took his visit very seriously, asked the chief systems engineer to show Academician She around every place that didn’t involve sensitive technology and even held several technical exchanges with him.

It was in such an environment that Academician She deeply felt the unique atmosphere of New Yuan.

He was left with two impressions: advanced and clean.

At first was the New Distant Factory, which, even after expanding, could only be considered medium-sized at best, but its degree of automation was quite high; wherever machines could be used, no human would be found, and the majority of the factory was staffed almost exclusively with technical personnel, with very few actual laborers.

The aerospace bureau wasn’t incapable of acquiring similarly advanced equipment, but the national budget was limited, and there was no demand for increased rocket production capacity, so handcrafting met the standards just the same.

Keep in mind, the aerospace industry is not like the auto industry; the former still dwells in an era of near handcrafting and customization, all the more so as the level of technology rises.

But this is clearly contrary to the democratization of space travel, and New Yuan accomplished this by attempting to automate any component they could.

For instance, the industrial printer he saw could directly complete the main body of an engine, then by installing the electrical and control parts, it was good to go, achieving a production speed the Institute of the Sixth Academy wouldn’t even dare to dream of.

Secondly, the employees here made a very different impression; almost everyone was involved in the technical work of the R&D department, continuously organizing learning and making progress with a serious and responsible attitude.

Moreover, communication between superiors and subordinates was smooth, based purely on technical discussion—it was purer than a school, and this was what he meant by clean.

Although it was not yet clear whether this was the reason for New Yuan’s success, it certainly gave Academician She a feeling he hadn’t had in decades.

Of course, he researched most about Lin Ju himself, who seemed to trustingly delegate all matters, only making final decisions without interfering in any technical work.

Academician She specifically emphasized this last point in his report to the aerospace bureau’s big shots.

The "big shot" grunted slightly dissatisfied; he, too, came from a technical background, and even if he intervened, it wasn’t without reason!

And even if he wanted to delegate authority like Lin Ju, could any of his subordinates be trusted to the same extent? Could he really not manage them at all?

But as much as he grumbled internally, the big shot also secretly felt the need to make improvements in this direction, unwilling to let the aerospace bureau continue to lag behind.

Naturally, when reporting to his superiors, what he emphasized was the budget issue, even though it wasn’t small, but how could it compare to New Yuan when spread over the projects?

On the evening of the 25th at 20:00, the control room selected the time according to weather conditions, and the New Yuan-2 Remote 1 decided to launch at 18:00 the next evening.

Ma from across the ocean saw the news, set an alarm for the early hours of the morning after calculating the time difference, and then went straight to catching up on sleep.

In his dreams, he envisioned the Falcon 9 successfully landing and being recovered.