"How is the situation over there at the return capsule?"
This was a Monday meeting of heads of departments at the Rocket Research Institute. The first thing Zhang Xingyang asked was about the return capsule.
As an important vehicle for astronauts to return to the ground, it cannot be overemphasized.
Moreover, the return capsule involves a lot of technologies that no one has had much contact with before.
"In terms of thermal insulation materials, the ablation-resistant thermal insulation coating we used before is also applicable to the return capsule."
Su Xiao, who is responsible for the research and development of thermal insulation materials, first stood up and reported the progress.
"Current experiments on the portholes of the return capsule show that the ablation-resistant thermal insulation coating can withstand temperatures exceeding 1,600 degrees Celsius."
"And because the portholes of the return capsule are designed with multi-layer insulated glass, after insulation, the temperature inside the return capsule can be maintained at around 30 degrees."
The thermal insulation performance of the return cabin is very important, if it cannot ensure that the temperature inside the cabin is always maintained at a temperature that the human body can adapt to.
Otherwise, there will be fatal danger to the astronauts involved.
The ablation-resistant heat-insulating coating originally developed by the Rocket Research Institute was used to insulate the outer layer of the Hongyan rocket.
When applied to the surface of the return capsule, the effect is not as good as on the rocket, and it can withstand temperatures exceeding 2,000 degrees.
But the return capsule will not generate such a high temperature during the process of returning from space.
So it's barely enough, but Zhang Xingyang still hopes to improve the performance of the thermal insulation coating.
"During the return capsule's return, the temperature may exceed 2,000 degrees Celsius in an instant, and the performance of the insulation materials needs to be further improved."
Su Xiao also knows that the performance of the thermal insulation materials they are currently developing needs to be improved, but currently the main body is organic resin synthesized from elements such as silicon, phosphorus, nitrogen, boron, chlorine, etc., and the areas where they can continue to be improved are relatively limited.
Therefore, Su Xiao did not give a 100% reply, but said more conservatively:
"We will try our best to improve the heat resistance of the thermal insulation coating, but the current material research and development has entered a bottleneck period, and we cannot guarantee that there will be a big improvement."
Zhang Xingyang naturally knew it, so he did not embarrass Su Xiao. After nodding, he said:
"Just do your best!"
Then he turned to look at Geng Bo, who was responsible for the design of the reverse thrust engine of the return capsule:
"Reverse thrust engine, how is the development progress now?"
As an important piece of equipment for decelerating the return capsule during landing, the reverse thrust engine works differently from an ordinary engine.
It is more like small bombs that explode when the return capsule is relatively close to the ground, providing an upward thrust to the return capsule and decelerating it.
If the reverse thrust engine is not working properly, the impact force of the return capsule will be very large when landing.
At worst, it may give the astronauts inside a bruise and face, or at worst, it may cause a concussion.
"What we are currently adopting is a design of two sets of reverse thrust engines."
Geng Bo showed their latest design plan on the projector in the conference room.
There are two designs similar to briquettes at the bottom of the return capsule, and each briquette has 22 nozzles.
Each nozzle can provide a certain thrust when the return capsule is close to the ground, decelerating the return capsule.
At this point, Geng Bo did not use the large-nozzle engine that was relatively popular internationally at this time.
Instead, it uses numerous small nozzle engines.
"After the reverse thrust engine receives the altitude information, first the eight nozzles in the inner ring start to function to decelerate the return capsule."
"After the speed is slightly reduced, the fourteen nozzles on the outer ring then start working for the final deceleration."
Geng Bo briefly introduced the working process of the reverse thrust engine, and then began to explain why such a design was adopted.
"We adopted a multi-nozzle design mainly to consider the overload problem of the return capsule."
"Although our astronauts are all selected from outstanding pilots in the Air Force, large overloads will still cause considerable damage to their bodies."
"The use of a multi-nozzle design can effectively reduce the overload of the return capsule during landing and reduce the damage to the astronauts' bodies."
At this point, Geng Bo paused for a moment, glanced at Zhang Xingyang, and then continued:
"And we use total nitrogen anion salt as solid fuel in the reverse thrust engine. If we do not use time-sharing ignition reverse thrust operation."
"There may be a scenario where the thrust is too strong, pushing the return capsule upward."
At this time, Zhang Xingyang looked at the reverse thrust engine design on the curtain with an expressionless face, without saying a word.
The atmosphere in the conference room seemed to suddenly cool down.
After a while, Zhang Xingyang finally asked:
"Have you done any testing experiments?"
"what's the result?"
Only then did Geng Bo take a deep breath and said:
"We have modified a return capsule for aerial simulation experiments."
"The experimental results show that the reverse thrust engine uses total nitrogen anion salt as solid fuel."
"Able to reduce the speed of the return capsule from 12 meters/second to no more than 2 meters/second within 2 seconds."
This performance is considered to be good data in the entire field of manned rockets.
So Zhang Xingyang didn't say anything more, but continued to ask about the parachute of the return capsule.
"Have the samples been sent over from the parachute manufacturer?"
The parachute of the return capsule can be regarded as the most important deceleration device of the return capsule during its return.
Komarov, the former first astronaut of the Bear, relied on himself to repair nearly a hundred malfunctions on the Soyuz 1 spacecraft that was riddled with malfunctions. He almost succeeded and came back alive.
But in the end, the spacecraft's large parachute could not be opened, and he died helplessly on the plains near Orenburg.
Therefore, Zhang Xingyang attaches great importance to the problem of the parachute of the return capsule. Even a failure rate of 0.1% is not allowed!
"It has been sent over. There were no problems during the previous tests."
Geng Bo's answer slightly relieved Zhang Xingyang's worries.
But as long as we don’t see the parachute of our own astronaut’s return capsule open, we can never be careless.
"Has the gamma ray altimeter been sent over from the Institute of High Energy?"
"We have made an appointment and will deliver it tomorrow afternoon."
After getting the exact time, Zhang Xingyang couldn't help but exhorted:
"After transporting it, we must do a good job in radiation protection."
The gamma ray altimeter is mainly used to measure the height of the return capsule when it is about to land, compared to radar ranging which has a slightly slower response speed.
The response speed of gamma source ranging is very fast, but the range is very small. It is mainly used when the return capsule is close to the ground.
However, because high-energy particles are used to measure distance, relatively strong gamma ray radiation will be produced. If radiation protection is not done, it will have a relatively large destructive effect on the human body.
(End of chapter)
