Chapter 84 Reusable Commercial Rockets

Xiang Ping didn't say anything, but there was a hint of dissatisfaction in his expression, because this feasibility report was written by the PhD in their group, and he was the one who reviewed the content.

To put it bluntly, what Chen Yuanguang meant was that this report was not very good and did not take economic benefits into consideration.

The problem is that scientific research projects themselves do not value economic benefits.

What they actually want to achieve is to be a global leader in certain indicators and help publish articles.

In academia, there is only one measurement indicator: articles.

Just based on the fact that Chen Yuanguang has published so many papers in Nature and Science, Xiang Ping fully recognizes Chen Yuanguang's ability, but this ability has nothing to do with electronic radar at all. What qualifications do you have to comment on such a project?

Xiang Ping wondered what was wrong with the world these days. It was extremely difficult for them to apply for projects, but today's young people were just doing some human hibernation projects related to manned space flight, and so many state-owned enterprises were willing to sponsor them.

He does not deny the difficulty of developing human hibernation technology, but he believes that the capabilities required for such a large-scale project are different from those required for ordinary research.

The more he thought about it, the more uncomfortable he felt.

This feeling became stronger when Chen Yuanguang expressed his opinions on the project.

"Yuanguang, tell me what you think?" Mao Ke was more open-minded than Xiang Ping. He was more patient and listened to Chen Yuanguang's opinions.

"I took a rough look and found that you originally planned to divide it into three phases. The core purpose of the first phase is to explore the lunar surface, which is equivalent to being part of the future manned lunar landing.

Then, throughout the three-phase plan, we hope to monitor the conditions of the solar system and even more distant celestial bodies.

My suggestion is to focus on the solar system and narrow the radar monitoring range. We can consider the S band.

Build an S-band phased array radar and add RF fiber optic transmission to increase the effectiveness of deep space tracking.

By combining the two, we can build a deep space celestial body mapping radar, which can directly map the geographical and hydrological features of the celestial body’s surface.”

Why does China's Compound Eye need to make the detection range wide enough? Because the technology of radar antenna array to track and capture near-Earth objects has a very long history. As early as before 1980, NASA built radar arrays to do this.

By 2022, they had tracked nearly near-Earth asteroids.

If you simply do this, it would be very low, but if you expand the detection range, and then say that you have greatly expanded the detection boundary and reached the top international level, this can give outsiders a feeling of being very cool and that the money was not wasted.

We have achieved a breakthrough in another area.

As for whether it is necessary, no one cares. A breakthrough is a good thing.

Chen Yuanguang's pragmatism made him have only one idea, that is, efficiency first, and there is no need to explore too much complex information in order to pursue global leadership in a certain indicator.

It is better to do the best you can within a limited scope.

The idea proposed by Chen Yuanguang is that after 2030, NASA will optimize their radar antenna array.

Mao Ke became interested after hearing this: "How to stabilize the RF optical fiber is a difficult problem.

In addition, what solutions should be adopted for mapping radar and how to avoid signal conflicts with detection radar? "

The whole process was basically Mao Ke asking questions and Chen Yuanguang answering them. Mao Ke's doubts were resolved in principle. As for whether it could be done specifically, Chen Yuanguang was not sure. It depended on the strength of Mao Ke and the Institute of Electronic Radar of Yenching University of Technology.

Chen Yuanguang had no practical experience, so he needed to rely on the strength of universities. It was impossible for him to start from scratch in all areas.

Chen Yuanguang estimated that relying solely on Yenching University of Technology would not be enough, and that Yenching University of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the Chinese Academy of Sciences would have to be brought together, because this would cut off NASA's future solutions, which would still be somewhat difficult.

The entire asteroid mining is a systematic project that requires the cooperation of tens of thousands of scientific researchers, who are not necessarily all employees of Guangjia Aerospace. This cooperation model can be an investment, an acquisition, or a supplier relationship.

Chen Yuanguang believes that he must control the key nodes, such as the radar phased array. If it can be optimized according to Chen Yuanguang's ideas, the success rate of landing on the asteroid can be improved.

If we use the old solution, some asteroids that are easy to land on may not be discovered.

"What do you think?" Mao Ke asked. Mao Ke thought that young people nowadays were amazing. He thought he was just investing some money, but it turned out that they had very high levels of cutting-edge technology and radar array design.

Xiang Ping was ashamed: "I have only heard some of the terms he used, but I don't have a deep understanding of them.

I found it very difficult to listen to the latter part. I could only roughly understand what he meant and what he wanted to do. As for whether it could be done specifically, I was not sure. There was no problem in principle.

As for implementation, we have never done so before, and we need the cooperation of the antenna module manufacturers.

They need to achieve a very high level of precision positioning, which requires a low phase mismatch antenna array and a 16T antenna switch. I’m not sure whether the aerospace industry can keep up.

This is a problem at the hardware level, algorithm level, automatic recognition, graphics gap filling, and generation of surface map hydrology.

It’s hard to say whether the amount of data is large enough and whether the algorithm can be simulated.”

To put it simply, the data detected by the radar is completed by an artificial intelligence algorithm, which is somewhat similar to the completion of a verification code.

Mao Ke smiled and said: "I don't know if we can do it, but if we follow his method, we can make a big innovation this time.

The low phase mismatch radar design he mentioned can be used in military industry and can improve our current radar detection accuracy to a higher level.

Including the model he mentioned, if it can achieve the effect he said, it can improve the active defense capability.

For this reason alone, we have to give it a try.”

Mao Ke's eyes sparkled: "No wonder the country values ​​him so much and is willing to invest in him.

He was groundbreaking.”

Mao Ke gave Chen Yuanguang a very high evaluation: "I will go to the ministry and inform them of the news first to see what they say.

There is a high probability that Chen Yuanguang’s proposal will be approved, and after it is approved, the confidentiality level of the entire project will be raised by two levels.”

Although Mao Ke and Xiang Ping didn't quite understand why it was designed this way and what the principle was, as experts in the industry, they could at least understand the general idea. Lin Jia didn't understand it at all.

She thought she was just a quiet and beautiful girl, living with a bunch of science and engineering geeks. She didn't even understand what was going on.

"You don't have to come, you just need to know that we are going to do this." Chen Yuanguang said when Lin Jia saw that she hadn't recovered yet. Lin Jia felt that this job was too challenging and was testing her limits.

“Although I don’t understand, I will understand it sooner or later if I come here more often.

If I don't participate in the whole process, then there is no point for me to be in Guangjia Aerospace. I don't have the ability to distinguish. Do you have to negotiate every investment and every M&A project in person?"

Chen Yuanguang had only two goals in coming to Yanjing this time. One was to talk to Mao Ke about the China Compound Eye Project, hoping to become the investor of the project and gain control of the project. The other was to acquire a rocket launch company.

In the short term, we can rely on SpaceX, but in the long term we still have to rely on ourselves and have our own goods.

The best way is to acquire.

Chen Yuanguang knew that it was not easy for a liberal arts student to invest in the aerospace field, as there were too many professional courses to make up for: "Okay, let's communicate with Shenhai, and you can go to Jiaotong University to make up for the lessons.

Go to the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics of Jiaotong University to take some basic courses, and I will arrange it for you later."

Lin Jia refused in his heart, but the words of refusal were already on the tip of his tongue, so he swallowed them back: "Okay."

Chen Yuanguang then comforted him, "Don't have too much psychological pressure. Just treat it as a popular science class. If you want to invest in the future, even if you have a dedicated team, you still need to have a certain degree of judgment on your own."

It is impossible for me to check every project, I only focus on the final result of the project. "

Chen Yuanguang’s architectural design for Guangjia Technology is very simple. He is personally in charge of the R&D department, while Lin Jia is in charge of the investment and mergers and acquisitions department. He only puts forward requirements, and whether it is implemented by universities or enterprises depends on who meets the requirements better.

Now, because the company is just starting out and its operations are not on the right track, Chen Yuanguang needs to take care of both R&D and investment at the same time.

"Mr. Yao, we want to acquire Oriental Space, and we are willing to complete the acquisition at a market value of 2 million RMB.

You can choose to cash out and leave, or choose to exchange it for dividend rights of Guangjia Aerospace. "Chen Yuanguang and Lin Jia came to the second destination of this trip, the R&D center of Oriental Space in Yanjing.

Yao Song was waiting for them here.

As an entrepreneur who started his business after graduating from college, Yao Song's experience is already legendary enough. After graduating from Tsinghua University, he founded a company that makes AI chips, and then sold it to Xilinx for US$18 million in 3.

Oriental Space is Yao Song’s second entrepreneurial project, and its direction is the same as SpaceX’s main profit-making project, reusable commercial launch vehicles.

But compared with Chen Yuanguang, these achievements are not impressive enough.

As an insider in the industry, Yao Song knew about Chen Yuanguang's grand plan before. He was skeptical about the plan, thinking it was too difficult to succeed and too far away.

It is also because of Chen Yuanguang’s previous success stories that investors are willing to bet that he is the Chinese Musk.

After this meeting, Chen Yuanguang's straightforward approach actually made him feel a little more favorable towards him. For young entrepreneurs, sincerity is obviously more effective.

"God of Light, I'm not short of money." Yao Song was very respectful and good at making jokes: "The proposition of asteroid mining is too big.

I estimate that it will take at least 20 years to see initial results.

The reusable rockets I make have successful cases. China has a booming demand for rocket launches and has first-class talents. We estimate that we will be able to achieve good results in two to three years.

We received 5 million in financing when we started our business. After our first rocket is launched next year, we will be able to raise at least million. I have no reason to sell the company.

But we can cooperate. If Light Armor Technology has any launch needs, you can contact us."

Chen Yuanguang knew that the other party was a genius, and geniuses are all arrogant, so it was normal for him to refuse. "We only accept acquisitions, and in the short term, we can cooperate with SpaceX.

In the long run, if you don’t sell, we will change to other targets. If no one is willing to sell, Guangjia Aerospace will recruit people to do this ourselves.

You also said that there are successful cases of reusable rockets, and we just need to follow the pace of others. Dongfang Space has done a good job, and Guangjia Aerospace can do the same. "

Chen Yuanguang said these threatening words very calmly. The financial scale of Guangjia Aerospace is like a shark in this niche field in China, and they are here to eat meat.

Yao Song is equally confident: "We will soon launch our first solid-fuel carrier rocket, and we have already started developing a 100-ton-class large-range variable thrust liquid engine.

I believe we still have a certain time advantage, which can attract some capital to settle in. Guangshen, welcome Guangjia Aerospace to become a new player in the field of commercial rockets. I think we will compete for a long time. "

Chen Yuanguang saw that the other party's intention was very clear to refuse and was not affected by his threats at all. Moreover, there was nothing to talk about since they didn't even give him an investment opportunity, let alone an acquisition.

"Not necessarily. We will also talk to commercial rocket companies such as Interstellar Glory and Blue Arrow Aerospace, which are also in Yanjing."

“Their research and development capabilities are definitely not as good as those of the Eastern Space, Guangshen, instead of acquiring them, it is better to start anew.

These companies haven't received the results yet, and they are infected with a lot of big company diseases. I'm not exaggerating, you will know when you go and see them." Yao Song said frankly, his face calm.

After the round, he found that the other companies were the same and were very welcoming to his arrival. The founders all came in person to greet him for interviews. When it came to acquisition, they either offered a sky-high price that Chen Yuanguang could never accept or simply refused. Everyone felt that this field had great prospects and did not want to exit so early.

"It seems that everyone is optimistic about the commercial rocket field. No one is willing to sell the company. Everyone thinks that their company can become the next SpaceX. I even plan to kill SpaceX, let alone companies like yours." Chen Yuanguang was helpless about not getting any results after running around for a whole day.

He felt that he was giving them an opportunity, and if he did this business, he would see results in a year at most.

In the future, the launch data of rockets like SpaceX will be historical data, and models and chip design drawings will have to be found in electronic libraries.

Chen Yuanguang's original plan was to acquire a commercial aerospace company and then let this commercial aerospace company make reusable rockets. He would provide models and chips to improve the recovery accuracy and achieve a lower cost than SpaceX.

Then the research and development department of Guangjia Aerospace responsible for this area will work in a more advanced direction, electric propulsion rockets.

Now it seems that there is a slightly hopeful direction, and everyone feels that there is a gem among the unpolished jade in their hands.

“But it’s also good this way. We should first make some achievements in areas that everyone can understand, so that investors will have confidence.

It will also be easier to attract subsequent investment.

It's hard for people to understand the significance of your doing this right away." Chen Yuanguang thought.

　I will update 4k first today, but I won’t update today because I am having a writer’s block…

　　
　
(End of this chapter)