225: Chapter 225 Thrown from the sky, and still managed to land standing up!

Countdown to the arrival of the sentry ship, day 47.

Pangu Laboratory, B2 level, afternoon.

The ink on the words "Orbital Airdrop" in Liu Huaqiang's notebook hadn't even dried yet when the blue-and-white panel in Su Che's mind popped up.

【Ding! Mingdi Interceptor high-order inertial gliding technology finalized! Third subsystem mission triggered!】

【Mission Name: Throw it down from orbit, and it must land standing up!】

【Mission Content: The Mingdi Interceptor is the fastest blade in the Solar System, but the blade cannot run over from the base every time! When the Luan Niao Mothership is cruising in low earth orbit, the Mingdi Interceptor needs to have the ability to be airdropped directly to any war zone from orbit!】

【Orbital precision delivery, airdrop deceleration buffering, rapid deployment and assembly—three core capabilities, not one can be missing!】

【The Anti-gravity load-bearing system is the ready-made foundation; turn it into a parachute that can throw things from 400 kilometers high without breaking them!】

【Mission Reward: 500,000 skill points, unlock redemption permissions for Orbital Precision Delivery Technology, Airdrop Deceleration Buffering Technology, and Rapid Deployment and Assembly Technology. Redemption cost: 250,000.】

【Current host main skill point balance is sufficient, redeem?】

500,000.

Su Che went through the mission content.

Orbital airdrop, simply put, is stuffing the Mingdi Interceptor into a shell and throwing it down from low earth orbit, passing through the atmosphere, landing in a designated area, and then the Mingdi Interceptor pops out of the shell and gets straight to work.

Throwing it down from an altitude of 400 kilometers, the re-entry speed is seven or eight kilometers per second, and the peak temperature is over two thousand degrees.

The skin of the Mingdi Interceptor itself cannot withstand this heat; it has to rely on the surrounding airdrop pod to absorb the re-entry heat. After reaching low altitude, the Anti-gravity buffering component takes over for deceleration and lands precisely.

"Redeem."

【Ding! Consumed 250,000 main skill points, core technology unlocked!】

【System prompt: Supporting auxiliary technologies have not yet been redeemed, including: Airdrop pod design, deceleration parachute and Anti-gravity coordination scheme, rapid assembly structural drawings, total redemption points: 50,000.】

【Current host main skill point balance is sufficient, redeem?】

"Redeem all."

【Ding! Consumed 50,000 main skill points.】

Three sets of auxiliary technology frameworks flooded in.

Su Che spent about four minutes digesting them.

The airdrop pod is a conical shell. The entire Mingdi Interceptor is stuffed inside in a folded-wing state, with its wingspan folded from eleven meters to within four meters, and the fuselage axis coincident with the pod axis.

The outer ablative thermal insulation material absorbs re-entry heat, and four sets of Anti-gravity buffering components at the bottom are responsible for terminal deceleration.

After landing, the pod splits into four longitudinal sections, the Mingdi Interceptor spreads its wings, quickly locks the connecting parts back into place, the engine ignites, and deployment is complete.

Design goal: From landing to being capable of takeoff, within fifteen seconds.

Su Che walked to the public big screen, and the task allocation table refreshed.

"Academician Zhang Weide, airdrop pod structure and Mingdi Interceptor folding mechanism."

"Academician Sun Qiwen, re-entry thermal protection and Anti-gravity buffering start sequence."

"Wen Bo, ablative material selection."

Three lines.

Academician Zhang Weide pulled up the structural diagram of the Mingdi Interceptor wing root, placed both hands on the edge of the terminal console, and leaned forward.

"Folding mechanism. The Mingdi Interceptor wingspan is eleven meters, the fuselage is 1.2 meters wide, each wing is 4.9 meters, and to fold into a four-meter diameter pod, each side must fold at least twice."

"One fold at the wing root, one fold in the middle of the wing, two-stage inward folding." Su Che marked the position of the folding lines on the diagram. "The folding hinge uses a titanium alloy pin shaft, and deployment relies on pre-tensioned springs and aerodynamic assistance."

"How much aerodynamic load does deployment need to overcome?"

"Calculated based on static deployment at sea level, the deployment torque on one side is about 1,200 Newton-meters."

Academician Zhang Weide typed a string of parameters into the supercomputing terminal's command line without reaching for a calculator.

"Titanium alloy spring cross-section diameter is eight millimeters, four of them, total weight less than one kilogram. Single-side deployment time is 0.8 seconds, synchronized on both sides."

"0.8 seconds to spread wings." Su Che noted the number. "Pod splitting, connecting parts locking, system self-check, and engine ignition—squeeze out the remaining time."

Zhao Mingyuan walked in from the corridor, holding a cup of boiled water, and stood still in front of the big screen.

"Seven minutes from orbit to the ground, assembling and taking off in the last few seconds—paratroopers would want to hit someone after seeing this."

Su Che didn't take his bait.

"Paratroopers jump from 1,000 meters; the Mingdi Interceptor is thrown from 400 kilometers."

...

Countdown to the arrival of the sentry ship, day 46.

B2 level, morning.

Wen Bo came in with the ablative material selection report.

He placed a dark gray square test piece on Su Che's desk, slightly larger than a thumbnail.

"Phenolic resin-based carbon fiber composite material, density 1.45, ablation rate 0.08 millimeters per second, peak heat flux zone lasts 90 seconds, ablation layer thickness 12 millimeters minimum, inner wall temperature controlled below 80 degrees."

"Weight of the entire pod's ablation layer?"

"The pod's outer surface area is 28 square meters, 12 millimeters thick, total weight just over 490 kilograms."

Academician Zhang Weide reported the total weight from the other end of the terminal.

"Mingdi Interceptor is 12 tons, pod structure is 1.7 tons, ablation layer is 0.5 tons, Anti-gravity buffering component is 0.3 tons, totaling 14.5 tons."

"14.5 tons." Su Che checked it against the rated load of the Anti-gravity buffering component. "It was originally designed for the 100-ton class; 14.5 tons hasn't even used 15 percent."

"Load margin is not a problem." Academician Zhang Weide switched the simulation to re-entry attitude analysis. "The problem is whether it's stable."

A set of attitude oscillation curves ran on the big screen.

"The pod is conical, the aerodynamic center is in front of the center of gravity, which is inherently stable. But after the Mingdi Interceptor is installed, the engine section drags the overall center of gravity backward, and low-frequency oscillation occurs when the re-entry angle of attack exceeds 15 degrees, with a peak of plus or minus three degrees and a period of 2.5 seconds."

"Landing point deviation?"

"Plus or minus two kilometers."

Su Che stared at that set of curves.

Two kilometers, usable, but not clean enough.

"Add four aerodynamic stabilizing fins to the bottom of the pod, evenly distributed, single-piece area 0.15 square meters."

Academician Zhang Weide changed the parameters and re-ran it.

The oscillation peak was compressed from plus or minus three degrees to plus or minus 0.7 degrees.

Landing point deviation shrank to plus or minus 400 meters.

"400 meters, four fins add six kilograms."

"Approved."

Afternoon.

Academician Sun Qiwen handed over the complete sequence plan for Anti-gravity buffering, with 17 time nodes, each corresponding to a working state.

Su Che poured the 17 nodes into the full system simulation environment.

Superimposed the structural model and ablation parameters, and ran the first round of full-process joint debugging.

The eighth node got stuck.

At the 32nd second of mid-course deceleration, the Anti-gravity component switched hard from low power to medium power, and the sudden change in overload produced an instantaneous impact of 7 Gs.

The pod structure was fine.

But 7 Gs hitting the hinge pin of the Mingdi Interceptor's folding wing pushed the shear stress to 92 percent of the allowable value.

Academician Zhang Weide was about to speak.

"Don't change the pin shaft." Su Che cut him off half a beat early. "Change the power curve, make a two-second linear ramp transition from low power to medium power, and the overload will climb steadily from 2 Gs to 5 Gs."

Academician Sun Qiwen moved the pencil lead from his ear to between his other fingers and went back to change the sequence.

Re-run.

The overload became a smooth climb, and the hinge pin stress dropped to 71 percent.

Clean.

Academician Qian Zhenhua walked over from the east workstation, holding a piece of A4 paper folded twice.

"Re-entry blackout zone, 40 to 60 seconds, the plasma sheath swallows all electromagnetic signals, and the connection between the Luan Niao Mothership and the airdrop pod is completely lost."

"Quantum entanglement communication does not use electromagnetic waves."

"The entangled state is not affected, but the RF front-end of the transceiver terminal is wrapped by the plasma sheath, and the signal-to-noise ratio drops by more than 80 percent. It's not blocked; it's drowned."

Su Che thought for two seconds.

"Before the blackout zone, input the final trajectory correction command. Inside the blackout zone, the pod-carried main god ai will fly fully autonomously, and communication will be restored after exiting the blackout zone. For the 40-to-60-second autonomous window, allocate 100 percent decision-making power to the AI."

Academician Qian Zhenhua added a line of text to the A4 paper, folded it, and took it away.

Zhou Dehai hadn't made a sound in front of the holographic terminal in the corner, but spoke up at this moment.

"Chief Engineer Su, news came from Kaitian Base that the first batch of trial-manufactured components for the White Emperor has just come off the line from the New Zhulong."

Su Che responded, didn't elaborate, and continued to stare at the full-process trajectory line on the simulation screen.

...

Countdown to the arrival of the sentry ship, day 45.

B2 level, morning.

The final full-process simulation of the orbital airdrop rapid deployment technology reached the third round.

Six delivery angles, four landing altitudes, two thermal environments (day and night), 24 operating condition combinations, all passed.

The entire process is seven minutes.

Pod splitting into four sections: 0.5 seconds.

Wing deployment: 0.8 seconds.

Rapid locking connector engagement: 0.3 seconds.

System self-check: 2 seconds.

Engine ignition: 1 second.

From landing to Mingdi Interceptor completing deployment and being capable of takeoff: 4.6 seconds.

Su Che packaged the complete technical package and pushed it into the encryption warehouse.

The blue-and-white panel popped open.

【Ding! Main R&D mission "Throw it down from orbit, and it must land standing up!" completed!】

【Full system verification of orbital airdrop rapid deployment technology passed!】

【Orbital precision delivery landing point deviation compressed to within 400 meters, airdrop deceleration buffering full-process overload smooth and controllable, rapid deployment from landing to takeoff in 4.6 seconds! Falling from the sky is faster than others taking off from a runway!】

【Mission Reward: 500,000 skill points!】

500,000 credited.

Su Che closed the panel.

The few people on the B2 level were busy finishing up and archiving at their respective workstations.

Academician Zhang Weide saved the structural diagram of the folding wing mechanism after making the final version of annotations.

Academician Sun Qiwen printed a paper backup of the sequence table with 17 time nodes and clipped it into his experimental notebook.

Wen Bo tucked the dark gray ablation test piece into his work uniform pocket.

Liu Huaqiang turned to the Mingdi Interceptor page in his notebook and drew a checkmark with a pencil next to "Orbital Airdrop."

In the corner of the main screen, the countdown to the arrival of the sentry ship.

45 days.