Great Country Academician

After chatting with Weng Yunzong, Xu Chuan quickly found Wen Yuanhang, who was in charge of daily affairs management, and asked him to help arrange a meeting with Academician Yang Hong, the chief designer of Tiangong Space Station.

Wen Yuanhang naturally attached great importance to what Xu Chuan explained, and quickly contacted the science and technology department, contacted Academician Yang Hong through the science and technology department, and then arranged the relevant itinerary.

Xu Chuan didn't waste time, and immediately took the high-speed train to Jiuquan Aerospace Base after the itinerary was confirmed.

Here, he met Academician Yang Hong, the chief designer of Tiangong Space Station. This is a middle-aged man in his early fifties. He is not very tall, but he looks quite capable.

The whole person's style is not like a scientific researcher, but more like a screwdriver on a construction site.

"Academician Xu, welcome~"

Because of the prior communication with the Science and Technology Department, Academician Yang Hong waited in the office this afternoon. After Xu Chuan arrived, he smiled enthusiastically and stood up, shook hands, and said hello.

"Academician Yang, hello, I take the liberty to interrupt your work." Xu Chuan greeted with a polite smile.

"Hey, where is this? Academician Xu, you are a great hero of our country. Come here, please sit down first." Yang Hong greeted warmly, and boiled water to make tea himself.

Holding a cup of tea, the two exchanged a few pleasantries, and then Xu Chuan directly got to the point: "Academician Yang, I'm here to bother you this time, mainly because I want to consult with you about electromagnetic propulsion."

The Tiangong space station is an important goal in the "three-step" development strategy of Huaguo's manned spaceflight project. It is still in the construction stage, and the design manager Yang is naturally very busy. I can spare some time to do other work with him. Communication is also not easy.

"Please tell me." Seeing that the conversation was about serious business, Yang Hong also restrained the smile on his face, and took it seriously.

"That's right. I would like to inquire about it. If it can provide millions of kilowatt-hours of electric energy, is there any suitable electric propulsion engine technology that can achieve a carrying capacity of hundreds of tons?"

Hearing this question, Yang Hong frowned and thought about it.

After a while, he raised his head and shook his head, and replied, "Difficult, or almost none."

After a slight pause, Academician Yang continued: "Actually, in terms of aerospace technology, in addition to chemical fuels, we have been actively looking for alternative space power sources to make space launches and spacecraft on-orbit operations more efficient and economical. .”

"However, with current technology, chemical fuels are still our only option in the atmosphere."

"As for electric propulsion, to be honest, the current electric propulsion, in addition to being used by satellites and space stations in outer space, cannot even push an egg in the atmosphere."

"Take the Hall propulsion unit developed by me and applied to the Tiangong space station as an example. Its design is the HET-5000 hundred-kilowatt high-power class, with a designed operating power of 50 to 100 kW and a thrust of 2 to 5 N."

"Used on Tiangong in outer space, four such Hall thrusters are theoretically enough for Tiangong to realize all orbit changes and emergency operations."

"But in the atmosphere, it can only carry a bottle of ordinary 500ml mineral water at most."

"Even if the public data of the most advanced Hall electric pusher developed by the United States has reached 160kW, its thrust does not exceed double digits."

"This level of thrust is far from the 100-ton class you requested, Academician Xu. This is no longer a problem that can be solved if you can provide sufficient electric energy. There are too many problems involved."

Hearing this answer, Xu Chuan couldn't help but frowned.

To be honest, this answer was too far from what he expected.

After thinking for a while, he asked, "Where is the core problem in improving electromagnetic propulsion?"

Hearing this, Academician Yang Hong thought for a while, and replied: "If we want to solve the problem of electric propulsion thrust, the core is undoubtedly to solve the problem of thrust-to-weight ratio."

"In terms of technology, electromagnetic pushing has actually been maturely applied to satellites, space stations and other equipment for more than ten years, but the development and improvement over the past few decades is actually not that great."

"If chemical fuel is used as a rocket propulsion engine, it is relatively easy to do from the structure to the engine. The fuel delivery system and the control system are not complicated, and simple pipelines can be realized. The principle has not been significant from Goddard to V2 so far. Variety."

"But if it is an electric push, it must first consume a huge amount of electric energy and release it in a short time."

"Take the Hall thruster I am currently researching as an example, because providing thrust requires a large amount of high-temperature and high-pressure gas to generate reaction force, and the rocket engine will not blow xenon ions like a breeze like a satellite electric propulsion engine at all, it is more violent. "

"This requires a more powerful magnetic field to accelerate xenon ions to tens of kilometers per second or even hundreds of kilometers per second."

"This is the first one, and the second one is the working fluid."

"No matter how large the specific impulse of electric propulsion is, it undoubtedly needs to consume working fluid."

"Currently, the working medium of electric propulsion used on satellites in various countries is mainly xenon gas. And xenon gas is quite expensive, and is known as the gold in gas. If it is only for satellites to maintain orbit or some orbit adjustments, A few kilograms of xenon will be enough."

"However, if it is used for rocket launch or a space shuttle, honestly, I don't know how many tons of xenon gas is needed, and I can't calculate it. But what is certain is that the cost of each launch is undoubtedly quite expensive."

"In addition, a series of problems such as temperature and friction caused by electric propulsion during high-speed ejection are also difficult problems for the damage caused by the tail of the engine, electrode erosion, and ionization temperature rise."

Academician Yang Hong briefly described the problems of increasing the thrust of the electric propulsion engine. After listening to this, Xu Chuan began to think.

Although he hadn't done much research on aerospace technology, Academician Yang's succinct language allowed him to understand the core of the problem.

Judging from these problems, to solve the thrust problem of electric propulsion, there are two to three cores.

One is strong magnetic field and electrostatic acceleration.

Undoubtedly, to provide a huge thrust through the electromagnetic propulsion engine, it is certain to accelerate the ionized working fluid to a very high level.

This speed may be tens of kilometers per second, or it may be hundreds of kilometers per second, but there is no doubt that it can be regarded as the unit of the speed of light.

Even if it is only one-thousandth or even one-ten-thousandth of the speed of light, this is quite a terrifying value.

The second is the working substance.

At present, the main working medium of electric propulsion is xenon gas. Although he does not know the specific price of xenon gas, Academician Yang has said that it is not cheap, and I am afraid that it is indeed not cheap.

So finding a cheap alternative is a must.

After all, to send dozens of tons or even hundreds of tons of items into outer space, the amount of working fluid required will definitely not be small.

As for the third one, there are some other problems with the engine.

After thinking quietly for a while, Xu Chuan suddenly raised his head and asked, "Academician Yang, if I can solve the problem of magnetic field and working medium, is it possible to realize this kind of electromagnetic propulsion engine?"

Hearing this, Yang Hong looked over in surprise, and asked in surprise: "Solve the magnetic field and working fluid? How do you solve these two?"

Xu Chuan smiled and said, "Tell me first, on the basis of solving these two problems, is there a way to achieve a high-thrust electromagnetic propulsion system?"

Although he thinks that these two problems are almost impossible to solve at present, Yang Hong still thought about it: "If the magnetic field and working fluid can be solved, the thrust of electromagnetic propulsion can definitely be greatly improved. But how much it can be improved, I don't know." legal judgment."

After a pause, he looked at Xu Chuan and asked curiously, "So how are you going to solve the two problems of magnetic field and working fluid?"

PS: Ask for a monthly pass at the second watch.