Chapter 454 Drifting Dandelions
June 28th, the first year of Xinghe.
Ceylon Ocean.
Motor Island.
The Northern Space City, which was invested and built by Homo Sapiens Company locally, has finally completed all the construction projects and solved various technical problems of the Dandelion Mass Projector.
Even Li Qingye, who had been working at the Southeast Asia headquarters, came to Mada Island from the headquarters a few days ago on the Fourth Aerospace Fleet.
He conducted a rough survey of the various industries and cities of the Mada Island branch in the past few days .
At this time, he was visiting the entire base accompanied by Su Changli, chief engineer of the Dandelion project.
Inside the space station in the underground base.
A space train is displayed on the track.
"Mr. Chairman, this is the Spark space train we designed." Su Changli introduced it to him excitedly.
Li Qingye looked at the Spark, which had a somewhat unusual shape: "Is that the one inside the Spark?"
Su Changli nodded: "Yes, the outside is a vacuum track, I call this part the shell."
The so-called cartridge case is actually a part of the vacuum electromagnetic acceleration tube. It is specially designed like this for the convenience of rapid firing.
This section of pipe is 300 meters long and has an inner diameter of 30 meters, while the Spark space train installed inside is 100 meters long and 10 meters in diameter.
"What is the payload of the Spark?"
"The takeoff weight of the Spark is 12,000 tons, the payload in low-Earth orbit is 4,000 tons, and the payload in synchronous orbit is 3,000 tons."
"The effectiveness coefficient of low-Earth orbit is 33%? Not bad." Li Qingye was very satisfied with the data.
Although Su Changli was very happy, he did not get carried away: "In fact, this also requires the help of electromagnetic acceleration and vacuum pipes, otherwise it would be difficult to achieve."
Why is the near-Earth orbit efficiency coefficient of conventional launch vehicles below 3%?
The reason lies in the initial acceleration and air resistance, which consume a large part of the power of the launch vehicle.
The mass projector of the Dandelion project will increase the speed of the Spark to the first cosmic speed during the electromagnetic acceleration of the ring pipeline stage, and then project it out.
After being launched, the Spark will continue to fly for 30 kilometers in the vacuum tube. During this period, the Spark's engine will start to continue to accelerate the Spark and offset the earth's gravity.
Li Qingye watched for a while and said, "You guys arrange the launch!"
"Okay." Su Changli quickly called Bai Sha, the head of another technical department, and asked him to arrange the launch.
The huge shell-shaped pipe, carrying the Spark, passed through the track and slowly moved to the circular acceleration pipe, where there was a gap.
After the two were combined, the staff in the control room started the vacuum procedure.
The air inside the entire annular pipeline and the column-type vacuum pipeline pulled up by the annular airship decreased rapidly.
The vacuum system will not stop operating until the air density in the vacuum pipe reaches the same level as the air density at an altitude of 30,000 meters.
The reason why the vacuum is not completely drawn is that, on the one hand, it is impossible to completely draw the vacuum, and on the other hand, it is to avoid sudden differences in air density.
Choosing to keep the air density consistent with that at an altitude of 30,000 meters will ensure that the Spark will not be affected by the difference in air density when it rushes out of the vacuum tube .
At this time, Su Changli had already brought Li Qingye to the control room.
Baisha saw that the vacuum degree of the pipeline had reached the standard, so he immediately ordered: "Begin circular acceleration!"
The power supply system inside the base injects surging electrical energy into the electromagnetic acceleration frame.
This electromagnetic accelerator is the device responsible for acceleration, but the Spark itself does not have any components for electromagnetic acceleration.
The electromagnetic accelerator clamped the Spark and began to accelerate along the circular acceleration pipeline.
From the initial 10 meters per second, in less than 10 minutes, the speed had increased to 500 meters per second.
At this time, the electromagnetic accelerator has run almost half a circle in the circular pipeline, and the length of this circular pipeline is 300 kilometers.
The speed of the electromagnetic accelerator became faster and faster. After running several circles in the circular pipe, it finally increased its speed to the limit of 7,800 meters per second.
"Begin to change track."
The staff pressed the track change switch, and the control system automatically adjusted the track to connect the inclined curve pipelines of the ring pipeline.
7 seconds later.
The electromagnetic acceleration frame slides along the track into the inclined curved pipeline, which is also the last section of the electromagnetic acceleration pipeline.
When the electromagnetic accelerator entered the hard pipe of the column-type vacuum pipe, the Spark automatically ignited instantly at an altitude of 1,500 meters.
Vacuum pipes make no sound.
However, Li Qingye still saw the ignition moment of the Spark through the data from the temperature sensor.
At this time, the tail flame and exhaust gas produced by the ignition of the Spark are sprayed onto the bottom plate of the electromagnetic accelerator, which just slows down the electromagnetic accelerator.
The Spark maintained a speed of 7.8 kilometers per second and flew upward along the vacuum hard pipe.
Then break through the hard pipe and enter the vacuum hose area.
The speed of 7.8 kilometers per second is amazing. The Spark crossed the 26-kilometer-long vacuum hose area in just over three seconds.
Boo!
The fire number penetrates the insulating film above the pipeline.
However, the Spark, which was already at an altitude of 30,000 meters, did not reduce its speed. The power of low-flow combustion was enough to overcome the earth's gravity.
After all, the air density at an altitude of 30,000 meters is very small, it is almost a vacuum.
Moreover, as Spark flies higher and higher, the gravity of the earth and the air resistance of the atmosphere will become smaller and smaller, which means that the power required by Spark will also become smaller and smaller.
9 seconds after breaking through the barrier film.
AllSpark flies over the Kármán Line.
"Core level one separation!"
The core stage of the Spark separated from the Spark, and the Spark space train still weighed 6,000 tons. Since this mission is to the mid-level orbit, the payload of the Spark is 3,600 tons, and the rest are fuel and auxiliary engines.
The first core stage that was thrown down was not scrapped. Instead, it used the remaining 500 tons of fuel to continuously adjust its descent speed and finally landed on the northeast coast of Motor Island, where there is a dedicated space landing site.
Compared with other conventional launch vehicles, the core stage of Spark can be used at least 50 times.
On the one hand, it is because of the unique integrated manufacturing technology of the Sapiens Company, and on the other hand, it is also because of the vacuum pipes and electromagnetic acceleration, which themselves cause relatively little damage to the Spark's body.
at the same time.
Spark after breaking through the Karman Line.
The body of the machine, which was 50 meters long and 10 meters in diameter, simply scared the whole world.
Just compare it with the Falcon Heavy launch vehicle. The Falcon Heavy launch vehicle has a length of 70 meters at takeoff, a body diameter of 3.6 meters, and with two boosters, its takeoff weight is about 1,400 tons.
When the Spark flies out of the Kármán line, its takeoff weight is roughly equivalent to that of a four-engine Falcon Heavy.
As long as the size data of the Spark can be detected, the payload of the Spark can be basically determined.
Obviously, the major aerospace agencies and intelligence institutions around the world that are closely following Sapiens would not be so incompetent that they cannot even analyze this kind of data.
Spark did not linger in low-Earth orbit, but adjusted its orbit twice through auxiliary engines and then flew directly to the mid-Earth orbit.
This time, the mission of the Spark is to go to the Homo sapiens space station.
Although it was a test mission, Su Changli was full of confidence and obviously had no intention of wasting the payload of this launch mission.
The Spark will stay at the Homo Sapiens Space Station and become the main axis of the Homo Sapiens Space Station.
