Earth Era

The material storage warehouse of the Crimson Heart spacecraft has been installed in the Hercules rocket. The Hercules rocket at the moment stands next to the launch tower. The huge arrow with a height of 70 meters pointed straight at the sky, and a heroic aura that pierced the sky continued to radiate from it.

After the old man issued the order, the five astronauts stood at attention at the same time, facing the screen, giving a standard military salute to all the operators in the control hall, then turned around and left the control hall in a neat line.

Through the surveillance screen, Zhao Huasheng saw the five astronauts get on the shuttle bus, and the shuttle bus drove directly to the launch tower. The five astronauts got off the bus and then ascended to the level with the tip of the Hercules rocket through the elevator the height of.

The crew has been evacuated from the launch tower. Through the air bridge, the five astronauts entered the rocket one by one. Then the exit of the material storage warehouse is closed, and the rocket channel is closed.

The camera in the storage bin transmits the pictures of the astronauts in real time, and the spacesuit in the cabin constantly monitors the astronauts' heart rate, respiratory rate, blood pressure, body temperature and other data.

The wind gauge reports the current surface wind speed and the upper-air wind speed, and the weather satellite reports the current weather conditions. Rocket sensors report the operation of instruments in various parts of the rocket. The staff were working intensely, and an extremely dignified atmosphere enveloped the entire control hall. The image of the old man has always been on the big screen. Obviously, the old man has been watching here.

About forty minutes after the astronauts entered the rocket, Wang Tang came to the big screen again and reported to the old man Hui: "Report to the head of state, everything is ready, the modules of the rocket are normal, and the weather conditions are good, please instruct!"

The old man nodded: "Shoot!"

Wang Tang turned around and shouted loudly, "The 30-second countdown begins!"

On the other screen, two huge Arabic numerals appeared, one was three and the other was zero. After a while, the number changed to twenty-nine.

The huge steel frame surrounding the rocket and attached to the launch tower slammed apart at this time, cutting off the connection between the Hercules rocket and the launch tower.

There are continuous reports of detection signals from various modules of the rocket. After these reports, the words "everything is normal" are added. That means the Hercules rocket is in good shape.

When the countdown reached four, Zhao Huasheng saw a crimson flame appearing at the tail of the Hercules rocket on another big screen broadcasting the real-time exterior scene of the Hercules rocket. This flame is not strong, but it looks full of power.

This group of rockets quickly strengthened in just four seconds, and finally turned into a vertical jet. As the flames intensified, the four boosters mounted on the Hercules rocket ignited at the same time. The fire from the booster merged with the fire from the rocket's main engine, eventually becoming so bright that it was almost impossible to see.

"zero!"

"Launch!" Wang Tang shouted out the word "launch".

At this moment, the fire from the tail of the Hercules rocket intensified again. These flames turned colorless and transparent when they just left the rocket. Only the air around them that was distorted and deformed because of the high temperature showed their power. Only a few meters away from the tail of the rocket, they showed a strong crimson red and rolled into a ball.

A large amount of thick white fog evaporated from the tail of the rocket, almost covering a space of tens of meters in radius. Zhao Huasheng knew that the flame ejected by the rocket was guided out by the diversion groove, and then the liquid used for cooling quickly evaporated.

At this time, even Zhao Huasheng, who was sitting at least a thousand meters away from the Hercules rocket, felt the earth tremble. It was a very slight, yet very dull shaking, like an earthquake, but not quite the same as an earthquake.

Zhao Huasheng raised his head and saw from the real-time location display screen that the Hercules heavy carrier rocket with a height of 70 meters and a weight of more than 4,000 tons was slowly taking off. At the beginning, its speed was very slow, like a rope was slowly lifting it up, but after only ten seconds, its speed increased to a shocking speed. high.

In the extremely fast acceleration, the gravity inside the rocket can even be as high as ten times the gravity of the earth. This can be seen from the somewhat distorted faces of the five astronauts lying flat in the storage bin.

Under such a huge gravity, the astronauts can't even lift their arms. They can only lie quietly in the storage warehouse, using all their strength to fight against this huge gravity beyond ordinary people's imagination.

There were a lot of things that seemed to be fragments peeled off from the rocket body, and sprinkled on the ground like rain. Zhao Huasheng knew that those fragments were the insulation layer of the rocket, and they were actually some foamed plastics.

When the rocket was still on the surface, in order to prevent the low temperature of the ground from affecting the material structure of the rocket body, engineers attached these things on the outer shell of the rocket body. When the rocket lifts off, the intense friction with the atmosphere will peel off the plastic foam, creating the debris seen at the moment.

There were constant reports sounding in the control hall, listening to the "normal" and "normal" one by one, Zhao Huasheng's slightly nervous mood also calmed down.

More than 20 seconds after the rocket took off, the direction of the rocket's ascent changed somewhat. It no longer pointed vertically to the sky, but began to drift slightly to the east. Because the earth's rotation is from west to east, shifting to the east can use the earth's rotation to increase its speed.

More than a minute later, the four boosters mounted on the Hercules rocket body left the rocket at the same time. They have done their part, so it's time to leave. At this moment, the speed of the rocket has not reached the first cosmic speed of the earth, so the boosters that have come off will fall to the earth at a very high speed, and then be destroyed in the violent friction with the atmosphere. It is also possible that some debris will fall to the ground if the combustion is not sufficient.

After the booster was separated, it was time for the first stage engine to separate. In order to ensure a strong thrust, the Hercules rocket has a total of three-stage structure. Among these three-level structures, the first-level engine is responsible for the most important and most difficult task. So it is also the largest. The total length of the Hercules rocket is 70 meters, and the length of the first stage engine is nearly 30 meters.

The Hercules rocket was still flying at high speed, but at this moment the flames at its tail suddenly disappeared. The next moment, the thirty-meter-long first-stage engine left the rocket with a bang. It also fell to the earth like a previously separated booster, and then disappeared in the violent friction with the atmosphere.

The first-stage engine is disengaged and the second-stage engine ignites, and it will take on the heavy responsibility of continuing to send the rocket into orbit.

The ignition of the second-stage engine took less than a minute to work, and then it also followed in the footsteps of the first-stage engine. It also fell off the rocket and fell into the atmosphere, and the third-stage engine began to fire.

At this moment, the Hercules rocket is more than 300 kilometers above the surface, and has reached the height of the low-earth orbit. But this height is not enough, it will continue to rise.

The air here is already extremely thin, so the fairing at the tip of the rocket has no effect, and it was thrown away by the rocket and fell into the atmosphere.

The material storage warehouse was completely exposed to the space environment. However, there is also a complete life support system in the material storage warehouse, so this will not have any effect on the astronauts in the warehouse.

The three-stage engine also completed the task after working for more than half a minute. However, it will not be thrown away from the rocket. At this time, it is the material storage warehouse that has to leave the rocket.

This step is the separation of the ship and the arrow. After the acceleration of the three-stage rocket engine, the material storage warehouse has enough speed that it can already enter the orbit around the earth. In the future, it will travel alone.

At this stage, the launch has basically been successful. In the control hall, the staff also recovered from their nervousness. Real-time images of the astronauts are still being broadcast on the display screen. Zhao Huasheng saw that the astronauts had been freed from the trouble of huge gravity. At this moment, they were in a weightless environment. Zhao Huasheng saw them floating spontaneously in the cabin, as if they were in water.

"Finally, nothing happened." Zhao Huasheng breathed a sigh of relief and threw out the ominous premonition in his mind.

The material storage warehouse also has its own propulsion engine, which will be used for the trajectory and speed adjustment of the cabin. In the next time, the material storage warehouse will revolve around the earth for two weeks at a speed of eighty-seven minutes per circle, and adjust its attitude, angle and speed during this time, and finally communicate with the Crimson Heart. Rocket docking.

Zhao Huasheng has been waiting here. In the material storage warehouse, the sun rose and set, rose and set, a total of two times. The figure of the Crimson Heart solar exploration spacecraft finally appeared in the field of vision.

The speed of the material storage warehouse and the Crimson Heart spacecraft at this moment is 9.3 kilometers per second. It's incredibly high speed, but because both maintain the same speed, they appear to be standing still to each other. In this almost static situation, the two are slowly approaching each other. In the end, with the assistance of the ground staff, the docking interface was smoothly docked, and the steel claws used to fix the docking between the two also extended smoothly, connecting the two firmly together.

The five astronauts went through the docking port from the material storage warehouse to the control room of the Crimson Heart spacecraft.