Chapter 143 Tolerance for Failure (5k)

"This is a good thing!"

When Chen Yuanguang's voice came from the laptop, the core team members responsible for Pioneer II did not dare to speak, because they did not know whether Chen Yuanguang really meant it or was just mocking him.

Although judging from everyone's usual interactions with Chen Yuanguang, he never expresses his dissatisfaction in an ironic way, that is based on the premise that such a big problem has never occurred before.

The explosion of Pioneer 2, not to mention the direct losses caused, the time cost is more important, because both the contract signed with the European Space Agency and the contract signed with the China Aerospace Corporation have time requirements.

This failure is likely to lead to a delay in the fulfillment of the contract, so everyone has a lot of thoughts in their hearts, but looks sad on the surface.

Yang Jiashan spoke up first: "Boss, the explosion was caused by me. When I designed the Vulcan, I did not stick to our previous principles. I adopted a simpler high-temperature alloy single-wall structure in the rear section of the engine.

A portion of the hydrogen and exhaust gas produced by the gas generator is used as a cooling gas film, and then a layer of thermal barrier coating is added to the inner wall of the nozzle to improve heat resistance.

At the same time, a yttria-stabilized zirconia ceramic coating is added to the outer layer to provide heat insulation, and an alloy bonding layer is used between the added ceramic coating and the base metal to buffer the difference in thermal expansion coefficients between the two.

The alloy bonding layer here is MCrAIY, in which M is a compound of iron, carbon monoxide and nickel. I was too impatient and wanted to reach the intermediate state between our second and third plans at one time.

I guess it's because there were too many changes, and the engine of the Pioneer II was a bundled engine. The production process of the factory was not mature enough, and there were too many changes. The thrust generated by the engines in different positions during the ignition process was different, which further led to the explosion caused by the unbalanced force in the air. "

Yang Jiashan is an expert recruited from the China Academy of Space Technology. He is a favorite disciple of Liu Daxiang, an academician in the aerospace field, and a core developer of engines for the Long March series of rockets.

The reason he jumped out of the research institute was because he wanted to do something interesting. The desensitization period alone took a whole year, so he wanted to jump out and give it a try.

On the other hand, because light armor aerospace is attractive enough, the institute's rocket launch is mainly based on stability, and it must undergo a lot of demonstration before launch to ensure that it is foolproof.

Compared with Light Armor Aerospace, the number of launches by the institute in a year can be counted on one hand, and this is only the amount of Light Armor Aerospace in one month.

Moreover, in the foreseeable future, Guangjia Aerospace's rocket launches will be on par with SpaceX, and in that case, rocket launches may be carried out dozens of times a week.

There is absolutely no way to compare the research funding of the two.

Yang Jiashan made the decision to join Guangjia Aerospace before the launch of Pioneer 2. With the success of Pioneer 2, when he was still in the desensitization period in his original unit, many colleagues came to him to inquire about the situation and expressed their desire to jump to Guangjia Aerospace.

Science and engineering men's pursuit of technology makes them want to move to a free environment.

After Yang Jiashan officially joined the company after the desensitization period, his rich experience allowed him to quickly establish authority in the engine R&D group and become a person in charge with both name and substance.

The previous temporary person in charge, Lin Tianmin, serves as deputy team leader.

Yang Jiashan took the initiative to take responsibility, and Chen Yuanguang's voice continued to be heard: "I really think that bombing is a good thing.

This is a rocket launch. Both NASA and SpaceX have exploded many times in the past.

Just because we have never failed before doesn’t mean that I cannot accept failure. On the contrary, if there is no explosion, and we always hold on to the idea that rocket launches cannot fail, then this string will break sooner or later.

Because this goes against objective laws. We are engaged in scientific research and are a scientific research institution. We need to respect objective laws.

This explosion is better than the explosion when we carry the space station into space in the future, and it is better than the explosion when we send our own astronauts into space.

There is no team in the world that only wins and never loses. I have watched some football games where the teams that have won dozens of games in a row are actually very tired because they have been on edge all the time. When they fail, they feel relieved because they no longer have to carry such a heavy burden with them to participate in the game.

So this explosion also helped us to unload a burden from our hearts. As long as we can learn from the problem and make progress next time, even if there is another explosion next time or the next time, I think it is a good thing.

Dr. Yang just mentioned that too many changes in structure and materials lead to inconsistent thrust of engines produced during the factory production process. Is this a guess or a fact? "Chen Yuanguang did not want to dwell on the reasons for the failure, but quickly thought of improvement plans.

His time is too precious. Countless people come to him every moment, and he also needs a large amount of time to think about problems, so Chen Yuanguang needs to seize the time of every meeting to convey the correct ideas.

Yang Jiashan said: "It is my guess, because the rocket just exploded, the sensor has not been retrieved, and the data sent back during the launch process has not been analyzed.

We need to wait for the data, and we will form a detailed report when the data comes back."

Chen Yuanguang said: "Okay, I have an idea for your reference. Since the structure has been changed, why not be bolder?

Dr. Yang, do you want a major change or a rollback?

Return the structure to plan one."

Yang Jiashan said: “I don’t know.”

This is the truth. He just failed. Failure does not prove that his choice was definitely wrong, but it will somewhat undermine his confidence.

After Yang Jiashan arrived, he established his authority with his experience. The others were all newly graduated doctors or masters who had at most played with small rockets or data simulations. How could they compare with him, a core R&D personnel who had worked on the Long March 3 and Long March 5.

But he still insisted on making such a big change to this generation of Pioneer 2 because he hoped to surpass the carrying capacity of Falcon 9 in one go.

If there is no drastic transformation of the Vulcan engine, the thrust-to-weight ratio of the Vulcan engine will be inferior to that of the Merlin engine (the engine used by the Falcon 9), which means that their Pioneer 2 is not as good as the product of more than ten years ago.

The first launch of Falcon 2010 was in , so Yang Jiashan hoped to get it right the first time.

Chen Yuanguang said: "You are more professional than me, so you can make your own judgment. If you want to make major changes, you can refer to my ideas:
The nozzle extension section is modified into a spiral tube bundle structure, with a large number of nickel alloy tubes spirally arranged and welded to allow hydrogen to flow inside. The thrust of the engine is remotely controlled through this flowing hydrogen, thus achieving the goal of consistent thrust of different engines.

Even if there is a deviation in engine thrust due to the process, it can be recovered later.”

“Boss, deep down I hope to make a big change, because it would be a shame to go back after coming to this point, but we’re afraid we won’t have enough time.

We will complete the first cargo transportation for the European Space Agency before the first half of next year, and the first cargo transportation for Tiangong-1 in the first quarter.

Because they all involve docking with the space station, we haven’t done sufficient testing and calculations in this regard.”

Chen Yuanguang said: "It's okay, we have so much cash on our books, the worst that can happen is we will lose some money, no no, we won't lose money, the most we can do is to take less of the final payment.

Based on our costs, we won’t lose money at all.”

Chen Yuanguang continued, "You can discuss my ideas. I'll draw a sketch of my idea and send it to you. Otherwise, the spiral tube bundle is too abstract."

The members of the R&D team present knew that Chen Yuanguang really didn't mind what he said, so they began to discuss it.

Although Chen Yuanguang said that the decision-making power was left to you, the direct leader Yang Jiashan had already decided to make major changes. The plan proposed by the boss Chen Yuanguang was a major change, so naturally everyone would not be ignorant and continue to propose conservative plans. Everyone discussed the major changes.

“I think Mr. Chen’s idea is very reasonable. We cannot ask our partners to achieve significant improvements in technology in the short term. After all, we are indeed lacking in some high-precision aspects. The tiny thrust between engines will have a huge impact on the bundled engines.

It is unrealistic to pursue precision in the short term. I think the technical route mentioned by Mr. Chen is one of the options." After Lin Tianmin said this, everyone came out to express their own ideas.

The general meaning was agreement, and then some points to pay attention to when adopting this technical solution were mentioned.

After Chen Yuanguang finished drawing the sketch and projected it on the screen, he said, "That's roughly it.

We control the rate at which hydrogen is sprayed into these nickel alloy tubes, thus achieving the goal of controlling thrust. This technical solution is easy to achieve with remote control, but the difficulty lies in calculating how much the amount of hydrogen changes the thrust, which needs to be calculated very accurately, otherwise we will fall into the same dilemma. "

As the center of public opinion, every move of Chen Yuanguang and Guangjia Aerospace has attracted attention from the outside world, especially this failure and rocket explosion, which has aroused heated discussion in public opinion.

"It finally exploded. I thought the God of Light would never fail. It has only failed once out of six launches this year. That's normal, right? The probability is already very low."

"I heard from the grapevine that it blew up because the God of Light was not there. According to internal information, the Light Armor Enterprises have a serious dependence on Yuanguang."

“Isn’t it normal to have Yuanguang dependence? The first generation of entrepreneurs do everything themselves, so neither managers nor suppliers can deceive them. But when it comes to the second and third generations, they can’t control the details, and the company is prone to problems.

It’s a good thing to have addiction, and besides, there’s no rocket that doesn’t explode when it’s launched.”

"According to the live broadcast and public information from Guangjia Aerospace, the Vulcan engine used in this launch was acquired through a trade with the European Space Agency. Could it be that the Europeans played tricks with the technology they provided? Are there any loopholes in the technology?"

"This possibility cannot be ruled out, but if no technical loopholes are found, should the employees of Guangjia Aerospace also bear responsibility?"

"This explosion is good news for other companies in the commercial aerospace sector. Otherwise, they would be suppressed by Light Armor Aerospace, which would be miserable. I specifically looked at the successful launch of the Pioneer series rockets. Before that, the listed companies whose gimmick was rocket launches basically had public funds, securities companies, social security funds, etc. conduct research every week.

After the successful launch of Pioneer, they rarely had an institution come to research for half a year, and the stock price was pressed to the floor, even for state-owned commercial aerospace companies. This time, the rocket launch of Guangjia Aerospace exploded, and it feels like they finally have a chance to survive. "

"What can we do? The reusable rocket of Guangjia Aerospace this time has a super large carrying capacity. It exploded because it used a new engine. They haven't even managed a reusable rocket with a small carrying capacity.

Guangjia Aerospace has 40 billion in cash on its books. What do they have? 200 million in liquid funds, enough to burn through three times, and then it's gone.

Guangjia Aerospace's orders come from Europe, South America, and at the national level. They have a hard time getting a private order, and they even have to sell the rocket naming rights to Heilan Home. This gap cannot be made up by a single explosion."

There is a lot of optimism on Weibo, and it's like the New Year on Twitter, especially in English streaming and simplified Chinese circles.

Chen Yuanguang and Guangjia Group are the third target of hatred for this group of people after Huawei and BYD, and their degree of PTSD is even higher than the previous two.

"The failure of Wright Chen's Light Armor Space launch rocket may lead to a crisis of confidence in all its scientific research results."

English streaming media is still in use or will cause, and in the simplified Chinese circle it becomes:

"All of Chen Yuanguang's scientific research results are suspected of being fake."

Returning to English streaming, it becomes:
"According to sources, all of Wright Chen's scientific research results may be suspected of being fake. This is a strategic deception by relevant Chinese parties to the outside world."

Because English-language media outlets have to have some shame, they will drag China into the fabrication of news in an attempt to increase credibility so that foreign people in their information cocoons will believe it.

Otherwise, Chen Yuanguang's academic fraud alone could have triggered the collapse of the U.S. stock market and a total drop of 8% in the Nasdaq index. This is too exaggerated, and this is only possible if China is dragged into it.

English streaming media creates exaggerated negative news, the simplified Chinese circle processes the negative news, and the English streaming media then uses the processed negative news to spread it. The two are perpetual motion manure-making machines for each other.

Within Guangjia Aerospace, the news about this failure and Chen Yuanguang's statement spread throughout the company, and everyone agreed that Chen Yuanguang was a very nice person and a rare good boss.

After hearing about it, Lin Jia found Yang Jiashan, who had just returned to Shenhai from Yantai with the data and recovered shells.

Now all the light armor companies are in Shenhai, which makes it much more convenient for executives like Lin Jia who work on both sides.

"Team Leader Yang, I would like to know roughly the reasons for this failure."

Yang Jiashan looked at the young woman opposite him with long flowing hair, who looked more like the boss's daughter than an executive, and said politely: "Boss Lin, from the data analysis, it is mainly because we have a total of eight Vulcan engines, and the thrust of different engines in this batch of Vulcan engines is slightly different.

This discrepancy resulted in a loss of control during the launch.”

To be precise, the companies in the Guangjia Group were more polite to Lin Jia than to Chen Yuanguang. One reason was that the other party would get angry. If the department she was in charge of failed to meet its targets, she would make a torrential stream of sarcasm and slam the table to express her anger, which could easily spread throughout the company.

Secondly, because of Chen Yuanguang’s girlfriend’s identity, even if the boss doesn’t do anything to you, the boss’s wife may ask you to get out.

Anyone with eyes can see that if one wants to build a career, achieve some results, and realize the value of life, the optical armor series companies are a rare first-class platform.

For researchers who are able to enter Guangjia Aerospace, salary is not the decisive factor, it only accounts for a small part. What you can do is the key. You can participate in rocket design right after graduation. There are no complicated materials to write and no chores for you to adapt to. You can start doing related work right away.

The production cost of a rocket is at least tens of millions. It is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to participate in a project worth tens of millions right after graduation, and with the launch frequency of Guangjia Aerospace, it costs tens of millions a month.

You have to know that SpaceX, which is the counterpart of Guangjia Aerospace, received 360 million resumes (this is together with Tesla). Everyone cherishes this opportunity and no one wants to lose it because of offending the boss's wife.

The same is true for Yang Jiashan. During the desensitization period, he knew that many of his colleagues were also planning to switch jobs to Guangjia Aerospace. Some of them were already going through the desensitization process, while others were still struggling.

There are many researchers with similar qualifications and abilities as him. He has the advantage of time, and he hopes to maintain this advantage.

After listening to this, Lin Jia said, "I roughly understand whether Mr. Chen has told you that you can accept the next failure."

It is well known that Lin Jia received professional general training in aerospace at Jiaotong University, so it is not surprising that Lin Jia can understand Yang Jiashan.

He quickly said: “Boss Lin, Boss Chen said so, but we will definitely not fail next time.

We will definitely make adequate preparations before launching and run as much simulation data as possible on the computer.

Conduct a thorough static ignition test before launch."

Yang Jiashan heard that the other party could not tolerate failure, and quickly made a promise.

In his opinion, this failure was an accident.

Lin Jia said, “Team Leader Yang, my opinion is the same as Mr. Chen’s. I can accept failure, and I also know that it is normal for rocket launches to fail.

The main reason is that this time point is too sensitive. First, foreign media are trying every means to find topics to attack us, and this attack may affect this year's Nobel Prize selection.

Secondly, our transaction with the European Space Agency includes transactions for reusable rocket technology and subsequent research and development.

The entire agreement is more like a framework agreement, and too many failures will affect the subsequent specific implementation of the agreement.

So at this point in time, we have to try to avoid failure.”

After Lin Jia finished speaking, Yang Jiashan quickly said, "Mr. Lin, don't worry. If there are any doubts about the static ignition data before launch, I will postpone the rocket launch."

He understood what the other party meant and decided to wait until after this time window before launching the rocket.

Lin Jia said: "Okay, but if we are sure, then we should launch it. If our carrying capacity can exceed that of Falcon 9, it will also be a form of positive publicity."

　There is more in the evening. This chapter is 5k and there is another 5k in the evening.

　　It’s the end of the month, so buy your monthly tickets.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)