Chapter 170 No Choice Before

"Recently, officials from the Bolivian Space Agency will come to watch the launch of Pioneer 2. We received a satellite launch order from Bolivia last year, and almost all of their officials will come this time, including the director, deputy director and others.

They hope to discuss deeper cooperation with us," said Lin Jia.

Bolivia is a country in central South America.

After listening to this, Chen Yuanguang remembered that Guangjia Aerospace had introduced a senior executive from Huawei in terms of investment promotion, Zhou Danjin, the former president of Huawei's Latin America region. After he joined, he quickly attracted orders from the Bolivian Space Agency.

The order was only worth 50 million US dollars, which was at best a test, so Chen Yuanguang still needed to recall the specific details.

"They are so bold. It seems that Joseph's shooting has no impact on them," said Chen Yuanguang.

The Joseph case at best made France angry for a while, but there was no further development after that. After they caught the murderer, the whole thing stopped and they did not dig deeper into the deeper things beneath the surface.

Lin Jia said: "I am also curious about this question. I asked Zhou Danjin before, and he said that Bolivia has always had a bad relationship with America and is closer to China.

They are heavily dependent on trade with China and have extensive cooperation with China in the aerospace field.

Since 13, their first satellite was designed by China and launched from our Xichang Rocket Launch Center. For America, the Bolivian aerospace market has always belonged to China, so there is no loss of orders. "

The actual situation is more complicated than Lin Jia knows. The cooperation between Bolivia and China is far more than just launching satellites.

China’s first ground satellite station in South America is located in Bolivia.

"I see. That's a good thing. It's a good opportunity for them to see our brand new Pioneer II." Chen Yuanguang said with a smile after listening.

The last launch failure was still fresh in her mind. She said helplessly, "You have been busy with topological semimetals recently. Light Armor Aerospace can only attend the meeting remotely. Some specific work is all handled by the employees below. I really don't have much confidence."

She went on to say: "If the launch fails in front of so many people, it won't affect the current orders, but it will not be a good thing after all."

As a result, the number of people who came was far more than Lin Jia had imagined. Lin Jia received news from Bolivia that officials from their space agency were coming. It turned out that space agencies from most South American countries came in groups, and the entire visiting group had dozens of people.

Among them, Argentina, Venezuela and Pakistan all sent people.

Zhou Danjin talked to each one of them, switching back and forth between English and Spanish, sweating profusely.

"Director Wu, didn't you say it was only Bolivia? Why did so many people come at once?" Lin Jia asked.

Director Wu is the leader of the aerospace sector, and one of his duties is to be in charge of external affairs.

"Because they want more choices." Director Wu stopped there and didn't say anything more.

Zhou Danjin was also very puzzled. He finally found an opportunity to talk to Javier alone. Javier was the deputy director of the Bolivian Space Agency. Zhou Danjin had known Javier when he was still at Huawei.

"Javier, I don't quite understand why there is such a big scene this time. Almost all the countries in South America that are friendly with China are here." Zhou Danjin asked.

Javier nodded: "That's right, because everyone had no choice before, and often had to choose SpaceX, they do have an advantage in launch costs.

For example, Argentina. The core business of the Argentine company Satellogic was to build a network of 300 remote sensing satellites.

Once the network is established, remote sensing observations can be carried out on a weekly basis.

Previously, Satellogic has been using China's Long March rockets, Russia's Soyuz rockets and Europe's Vega rockets to launch satellites. Among the 22 satellites launched, 14 used China's Long March rockets.

However, SpaceX's costs and quotations were much lower than Long March, and they had the advantage of launching multiple satellites with one rocket. Therefore, Satellogic switched to SpaceX two years ago.

SpaceX can launch 36 satellites for Satellogic at one time, which is difficult for China to do.”

After listening to this, Zhou Danjin still had some doubts. Since SpaceX has such advantages, why don’t they continue to cooperate with SpaceX?
"I think I roughly understand that they want to see what price Guangjia Aerospace can offer." Zhou Danjin said.

Javier shook his head: "No, you are different from SpaceX. Although some people may suspect that Wright Chen has too close a relationship with the Chinese government, which may lead to unsafe factors in light armor aerospace.

However, this is fundamentally different from SpaceX's blatant threat that small countries must cooperate with America on some issues if they want to obtain priority in rocket launches.

Previously, Bolivia did not choose SpaceX even though it had to bear higher rocket launch costs. Not all countries are like Bolivia. Argentina, for example, chose SpaceX because of cost issues.

However, everything that has happened in the past two years has made them want to find new partners.”

The most crucial thing about everything that has happened in the past two years is that SpaceX has been deeply involved in geopolitical conflicts. It has never played such a big role in geopolitical conflicts on the European border.

SpaceX's Starlink prevents Russia from destroying its network connections across the country, allowing Russia on the battlefield to always maintain network communications, which is crucial to modern warfare.

This matter is undoubtedly in line with the national interests of America and is also a business behavior, but it also brings about general concerns among these small South American countries. SpaceX has too strong a commercial atmosphere and their business is no longer a simple business behavior.

Including what the relevant personnel from SpaceX's commercial department expressed during the contact, you should cooperate with American on some matters, and we will give you more convenience in rocket launches.

Events like these, combined with SpaceX's involvement in geopolitical conflicts, have forced everyone to look for new partners.

At the same time, South America has produced figures like Che Guevara, and the zuoyi movements in their past history have made them naturally wary of Americans.

The closer you are to America, the more confrontational you will feel towards it. America has a long history of directly sponsoring and intervening in South America. In recent years, the dollar diplomacy through the International Monetary Fund has caused these regions to directly rebel.

Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ecuador and Cuba are the five countries with the most intense resistance.

Compared with several other countries, Bolivia is one of the few countries that has localized shzy and achieved economic success.

It is also because of this that they are naturally close to China.

Zhou Danjin: "I believe that Guangjia Aerospace's Pioneer II will not let you down."

This time they are going to launch a total of six communication satellites for Bolivia, using the newly revised Pioneer 2.

After Bolivia and Guangjia Aerospace signed the contract last year, aerospace officials from other South American countries came to Javier to inquire about the situation. These South American countries are very interested in cooperating with China in the aerospace field.

A very simple example is that if China eavesdrops on them or steals their data, the global media will help them, but if America does this, it will be treated as if nothing happened.

Before the rocket was launched, Yang Jiashan explained the Pioneer II to them:
"This is our Pioneer 2, which uses the same strap-on engine design as the Falcon 9.

We worked with the French company Safran to purchase the Vulcan engine from them, and then modified it based on the Vulcan engine.”

"Excuse me, can you tell me what modifications you made to the Vulcan engine?"

Everyone is quite familiar with Vulcan. We have all heard of it before. Vulcan is one of the few valuable legacies left by old Europe.

Argentina once wanted to buy this technology from France, but was rejected.

"We must first make one point clear, that is, the engine must be iterated, because the Vulcan engine was produced more than 20 years ago and was designed for previous situations.

It is difficult to adapt to the needs of current strap-on rockets.

Just like the Falcon 1 uses the Merlin engine, they have undergone at least two rounds of modifications, from Merlin 1D to Merlin 1D+ and Merlin D++.

Our modifications mainly focus on the engine's fuel. Instead of continuing to use liquid oxygen-kerosene propellant, we use low-temperature hydrogen and oxygen, and adopt a closed cycle method with staged combustion.

The vacuum thrust of the Vulcan engine was 1145KN before. After adopting low-temperature hydrogen and oxygen and staged combustion, we sacrificed a part of the thrust, but improved its stability, and allowed us to more perfectly control the thrust between different Vulcan engines to achieve a balance. "

The experts present were shocked because this sounded too complicated and almost meant redesigning the engine.

"Mr. Yang, I would like to ask you, does this modification require you to redesign the combustion chamber and nozzle?"

"Yes, we use an ablative nozzle on the gas generator cycle."

"The strength and toughness of the material will be very high, including the turbo pump, which needs a very high-performance turbo pump to compress and transport low-temperature hydrogen and oxygen. So are you using a brand new material?"

This is a question that everyone is very concerned about. With the successive emergence of room-temperature superconductors and topological semimetals, Chen Yuanguang's status as a top scientist in materials science has been established. They all believe that such a radical design approach must have involved the use of some new materials.

Otherwise it would explode too easily.

Yang Jiashan: "Sorry, that's a bit too specific. I can only say that we use a special Invar alloy because it has a very low thermal expansion coefficient, good low-temperature toughness and corrosion resistance. Of course, the materials we use are more special."

"So how do you control the thrust?"

Yang Jiashan went on to say: "We added an external tank to the engine, and the cryogenic hydrogen-oxygen propellant is obtained from the external tank, so we only need to control the external tank.

By controlling the external tank, the hydrogen-oxygen propellant and thus the thrust can be controlled.

After the launch, the entire first-stage rocket engine will be separated from the other parts and then recovered.”

The experts from various countries present were eager to see the complete design drawings.

This is a bit too advanced. It is more in line with the needs of modern industry than the Falcon 9's powerful brick-flying mode. It is refined and highly controllable.

".In order to surpass Falcon 9, Pathfinder II has made a series of technical innovations. In addition to the engine upgrade just mentioned, we also used lighter materials for the entire rocket body to increase its load capacity.

We have also made a lot of technological innovations in intelligence, autonomous navigation, and multi-task adaptation to meet a wider range of launch requirements and mission scenarios.”

After the whole introduction, after returning to the hotel, these experts from different countries in South America were still discussing what they had seen and heard during the day.

It's really enviable. Although I don't know whether this rocket will explode, just from the introduction I can tell that it has high technical content. Its thrust is greater than that of the Falcon 9, and the control is so sophisticated that it is down to each engine. Its intelligence level far exceeds that of the Falcon .

Although everyone does not have the capital to research reusable rockets, they have all more or less visited SpaceX's Falcon 9. With Falcon 9 as a reference, they are very clear about the value of Pioneer 2.

"If tomorrow's launch goes smoothly, I think SpaceX should start researching the next generation of Falcon 9. China's Pioneer 2 is really far ahead."

"That's normal. The Chinese have made rapid progress in technology in recent years. They have even developed room-temperature superconductors. Isn't it normal that their rockets are more advanced than the Falcon 9 ten years ago?"

"Can you imagine that it's a Vulcan engine? It's completely different from the Vulcan engine I saw in France.

The French have gotten a great deal. I know Safran's engine experts, and they have signed a framework cooperation agreement with China, which means they need to share technology for the transformation of the Vulcan engine."

"Is it possible for us to buy this technology?"

"I'm afraid we can't offer a price."

While experts from South America were waiting to watch China's rocket launch, Americans were personally present in Iran and Gaza.

The whole world was in turmoil. This time, the global capital market plummeted, but the A-share market did not develop an independent trend, but instead plummeted along with it.

The capital market is in panic, and all investors are pessimistically thinking that the S3 season is coming.

He believed that China's series of breakthroughs in cutting-edge technology had caused great anxiety among Americans, so he could no longer hold back and took action himself.

The Chinese media reports will think that America can no longer hold it in, while the local media in America are all exaggerating that America's actions are to defend the free world.

In fact, the order they dominate neither encompasses the entire world nor is it free.

The 2000 billion special government bonds issued for this purpose were snapped up in the capital market.

"No, this is not an invasion, we are trying to restore balance and stability in the region."

(End of this chapter)