Chapter 1336 The Fate of a Propellant

After hearing the bad news, Lin Chenggang's fingers trembled slightly unconsciously.

His mouth opened at first, obviously wanting to say something.

But it quickly closed again.

After all, I really couldn't think of what to say at the moment.

Why is this so?

For the first time, I joined a project I liked and found a research direction that suits me. These two happy things happened together, and I should have had a happy time like a dream... But why did it turn out like this...

After a long time, I finally managed to come up with an interjection:

"what?"

Thousands of words are condensed into this short word.

"Cough-cough-"

Looking at Lin Chenggang's dull face, Chang Haonan felt a little guilty and cleared his throat awkwardly:

"Originally... because the air-breathing hypersonic program is still in the early stages of progress, and the decision to modify the design was just made, we planned to announce it at the next full technical seminar..."

"I just didn't expect that Comrade Cheng Gang also happened to have some new progress..."

"..."

In fact, this explanation is completely reasonable.

Although the core management team consists of only a dozen people, the entire hypersonic weapons project involves almost half of the military industrial system. There are nearly three-digit first-level subsystem leaders at the same level as Lin Chenggang alone. If the second and third levels are included, the number will be even more difficult to count.

With such a large project team, and considering confidentiality issues, there are inevitably problems with uploading and transmitting information.

A lot of the time this is done through regular reports and internal meetings.

It is not the case that once a decision is made, everyone will be notified the next day.

If Chang Haonan could have known Lin Chenggang's operation in advance, he might have been able to give the other party some psychological preparation in advance.

The decision to develop the CTK series of variable thrust propellants based on CT-1 was also inspired by a completely accidental inspiration. After confirming the feasibility of this technical route, the latter also thought, "I will save the good news first and give Academician Chang a big job when I report at the end of the year."

As a result, the big job was indeed done.

Too bad it works both ways.

Lin Chenggang knew very well that, in the final analysis, he could only blame himself for being bad luck.

But even though it's clear, it's still really painful.

"Academician Chang..."

Out of professional instinct, Lin Chenggang was still prepared to struggle:

"Although the rocket booster stage is not considered the core system of an air-breathing hypersonic missile, if controllable thrust can be achieved, it can still significantly improve combat flexibility..."

At the end of saying this, even he himself felt that he could not continue.

Improved flexibility compared to traditional solid rocket fuel.

Although conventional solid engines can quickly accelerate missiles after ignition, the high speed causes a surge in resistance, causing the missile speed to drop rapidly during the later gliding period. This defect at the principle level determines that even if the propellant performance and the overall engine design level can be improved, it is difficult to significantly increase the effective range of effective conventional rocket weapons.

In contrast, controllable thrust propellant can provide a steady stream of power in the early and middle stages while reducing the energy loss caused by air resistance, and then ignite a second time to accelerate at the end. Even if it is not much ahead in paper parameters such as specific impulse, it can still bring huge advantages in actual operation.

What's more, the CTK series propellant itself continues the excellent performance of the CT series, and is even more advanced than previous models in all aspects.

But compared with the air-breathing power...

It's somewhat self-humiliating.

In particular, hypersonic weapons are designed to compress the opponent's reaction time to the extreme, and there is no need to "trade speed for range."

So, after being stuck for a few seconds, he decided to change his words:

"Okay... Although hypersonic missiles may not require much flexibility, the requirements for starting speed of air-breathing power of different models and ranges are also different. We can design a universal booster stage, which can meet different mission requirements by adopting different control logic, thereby reducing R&D and production costs..."

Compared to the previous one, this time the reason is indeed more reasonable.

But not much.

Chang Haonan waved his hand to stop Lin Chenggang, who was a little panicked:

"If you consider the cost, the high-purity hydroxylamine nitrate and three-dimensional porous polyvinyl alcohol required for your propellant are not cheap, and the preparation process is relatively complicated. I'm afraid there won't be any particularly obvious advantages."

Although he felt sorry for the other party, he still had to make as few subjective judgments as possible on project matters:

"The most important thing is that the new dual-mode ramjet engine can achieve a combination of sub-combustion and scramjet, so it only needs a threshold speed of about Mach 2.5 to start normally, and then switch to scramjet mode after breaking through the next critical value. Therefore, a certain mission flexibility can be achieved by adjusting the ratio of the working time of the two stages..."

This time, Lin Chenggang was completely speechless.

What is dimensionality reduction attack?

This is equivalent to you studying hard for many years and finally passing the imperial examination, but then you hear news from afar that the Qing Dynasty has fallen.

"However, Comrade Cheng Gang, don't be too discouraged."

At this point, Chang Haonan decided to encourage this unlucky subordinate:

"I have seen the test data of CT-1 propellant on several types of air defense missiles. It can be said that it even exceeds my idea when I first proposed the concept of mixed propellant to a certain extent, and fully meets our needs for rocket boost."

"Moreover, as the threshold speed is reduced, the booster can also be reduced in size accordingly, thereby improving compatibility with launch platforms, especially air-launched and submarine-launched platforms."

So far, except for the three ballistic missile submarines 406, 409 and 200, the Chinese submarine force has no other models equipped with vertical launch systems.

The caliber of torpedo tubes, which is usually only 533mm and no more than 650mm at most, obviously limits the size of submarine-launched weapons to a considerable extent.

At least the initial version of the air-breathing hypersonic missile could not be inserted because the booster was oversized.

And for the same reason, it is also difficult to be carried by tactical aircraft such as the J-11, so it was originally expected to be equipped to naval destroyers and air force bomber units first, and then specially developed sub-models for land-based and submarine-launched.

Now it saves a lot of trouble in the future.

I guess Zheng Liangqun will be very happy after hearing this...

"Anyway."

Chang Haonan concluded:

"Your contribution will definitely be reflected in our achievements and will not be ignored by your comrades."

After hearing this, Lin Chenggang, who had originally looked as pale as death, finally regained some spirit.

Although CT-1 was developed almost entirely according to the ideas given by Chang Haonan, it is still his achievement.

It can be used in high-level projects, so at least all my work is not in vain.

"Then this CTK series propellant..."

he asked tentatively.

Although a round of experiments with a reasonable success rate has been carried out, more resources and time will be needed to truly promote this new technology for large-scale application.

If his superiors are unwilling to support him, he can probably only persevere until the end of the technical verification phase.

Fortunately, what Chang Haonan has the most is resources.

As for time, we can also ask the Torch Laboratory to provide some help to speed up the research progress.

On the other hand, Yao Mengna's maternity leave is about to end, but she is still breastfeeding. It may be inconvenient for her to enter and leave the workshop for a long time in the future, and she may have to take over some computing work.

This type of research related to electrochemistry can be said to be the field most suitable for computational materials science.

Therefore, Chang Haonan immediately made the decision:

“Continue the research and increase the investment!”

"Although the dual-pulse design itself is not a particularly new concept, the previous technical route has always used pulse isolation devices, which inevitably have an impact on engine performance and reliability. It is completely incomparable to this new idea... I will send a letter to the Industrial Construction Committee in the name of the chief consultant later, asking them to cooperate with your work and increase the priority of investment in the research and development of new propellants."

"In addition, considering that the problem with the rocket booster stage has been basically solved, I approve that you can directly participate in the research and development of those air defense weapon models. Of course, you will still be listed in our project team, so you don't have to worry about that..."

"..."

Half an hour later, Lin Chenggang left Chang Haonan's office with a thin letter of introduction in his hand.

Standing in the summer sunshine of the capital, he suddenly felt a sense of unreality.

How can I, a member of a hypersonic weapons research and development team, be developing air defense missiles?