In the future, our series of large-scale space exploration projects will also be moved from the northwest to the Nanhai Launch Center for launch. It can be said that that will be our main battlefield in the future. Zhou Xiangming explained to the female supervisor and others.
If I remember correctly, both the Jianmu-5 rocket and the Jianmu-7 rocket are retractable rockets. If they are moved to the Nanhai launch site, it will bring a lot of impact on the recovery technology of launch vehicles.
The large requirements and the limitations of the South China Sea launch site mean that we will abandon the land return and landing method and switch to an offshore platform for recovery.
As a result, not only the technical difficulty of recycling has increased a lot, but it has also increased the cost of recycling. After listening to Zhou Xiangming's introduction, the female supervisor immediately expressed her opinions or problems.
Everyone was a little surprised when they heard the questions raised by the female supervisor. Being able to quickly analyze the relevant shortcomings in such a short introduction is truly remarkable.
Then everyone looked at Zhou Xiangming, waiting for his answer.
As for Zhou Xiangming, after seeing everyone's eyes turning to him, he immediately smiled and then said to everyone very simply: "This is indeed what existed after we moved related rockets and large-scale space exploration projects to the Nanhai launch site.
Display problems, these two problems cannot be avoided, and they are indeed problems we have to face and solve.
In this way, I will answer your two questions.
First of all, the technical aspect.
There are indeed many technical difficulties we will face in moving from land to ocean.
The first step is to recover the rocket's landing site on land and transfer it to a mobile landing platform on the sea.
This requires us to improve the landing accuracy of our rocket recovery. If there is a slight gap, the rocket may fall directly into the sea.
Secondly, the sea surface conditions change rapidly, and the offshore landing platform will sway with the waves and undulations. Also because of the surging waves, it is difficult to accurately position the offshore platform.
This has brought new challenges and problems to the sea recovery and landing. The first is to control the accuracy of the sea landing platform and its swing amplitude. This has higher requirements for the research and development and manufacturing of the sea landing platform.
In fact, this problem is not difficult to solve, it is nothing more than spending more money. A very simple truth, isn't it that we always say that the bigger the ship, the more stable it will be.
It's very simple. Increase the displacement or tonnage of the offshore landing platform. The larger the tonnage of the offshore landing platform, the better it will be able to withstand wind and waves, and it will naturally be more stable.
However, simply increasing the tonnage is a bit too clumsy, or it may not be the optimal solution.
Because building such a large-tonnage offshore landing platform will inevitably require a lot of investment, which is different from our goals or concepts.
Because the cost of building such a large-tonnage offshore landing platform will also be reflected in the cost of each rocket launch, this increases the launch cost of the rocket.
Secondly, the risk is too high. The risk of recovering the rocket body at sea is very high, and it is still on the sea landing platform.
For recovery at a landing site on land, even if the rocket body fails to land, it will not cause much damage to the reinforced concrete landing site.
Even if it is damaged, repair is very convenient and the cost is very low.
But when it comes to a sea landing platform, once the rocket body fails to land and explodes or burns, it will be a devastating blow to such a sea landing platform that has been developed and manufactured with a lot of money.
Then such a failure will cause huge losses to our entire project, and this loss will be difficult for us to bear.
Even Musk's Falcon rocket had such a major accident during the recovery process.
So they chose to use a sea landing platform converted from a cheap cargo ship to recycle and land the rocket body.
We also plan to adopt this idea and purchase a second-hand cargo ship to transform into a sea landing platform for recycling and reusing rocket bodies.
Of course, if you want to build it into a sea landing platform, you still have to spend a lot of effort.
The second way is to build a large offshore floating platform as an offshore landing platform to conduct rocket recovery experiments. This cost will also be relatively low.
Currently, we are also experimenting with two methods to choose a recovery method and offshore landing platform that is suitable for us.
Of course, there is actually a more trouble-free way, that is, we can rent the offshore landing platform of the Aerospace Industry Group. The conditions of that platform are better, and the single rental cost is relatively cheap.
In this regard, although we and they also have a mutual competitive relationship, such cooperation is also very beneficial to both parties.
For us, we save money on building an offshore landing platform and can use a very good offshore landing platform at a very small cost.
For the aerospace industry group, it also costs a lot of money to maintain such a sea landing platform. Except for some launch missions, these sea landing platforms are idle.
And our use can help them solve part of their maintenance costs. In this way, it is also a very considerable income for them in one year."
Wu Hao nodded when he heard this: "This is a win-win cooperation. You can try to contact them and explore their tone first.
If necessary, I can communicate with the leadership of the Aerospace Technology Group."
Thank you, Mr. Wu. Zhou Xiangming's face showed joy and he thanked him quickly.
Yang Fan on the side shook his head and said: "In the long run, we still have to have our own sea landing platform. In this way, the restrictions are smaller. And in terms of long-term development, we have such a ship of our own
The sea landing platform is still very beneficial."
Yes. Zhou Xiangming nodded and said: "There will definitely be many restrictions on using other people's properties, and even if the single rent is cheap, it will probably be a considerable expense when added up over a year.
So our opinion is to build our own offshore landing platform, and we can do it all at once."
After hearing Zhou Xiangming's words, everyone present nodded in agreement.
Wu Hao looked at everyone, then kowtowed slightly and said: "In that case, then you should first come up with a feasibility plan for the construction of the offshore landing platform and a catalog of related cost quotations.
Let me take a look first and say that compared to our future huge space exploration projects, this is just a drop in the bucket.
So there is no need for you to be so entangled, you have to invest when you should invest, as long as you don't squander it."