Chapter 94: Serious Malfunction
After docking, the more than sixty thousand tons of cargo on the ship were slowly ferried to the surface of Enemy God Star by dual-purpose transport craft.
Aside from a few supplies that Enemy God Star could not produce locally, this cargo was all large-scale mining equipment.
Equipment specifically for mining uranium ore!
As the second-stage pressurized thrusters gradually matured, his demand for fission fuel was bound to skyrocket in the future.
He would exploit the resources on Ceres, and he couldn't let Enemy God Star go untouched. It had to be exploited as well!
After the tens of thousands of tons of cargo were unloaded, a variety of products from Enemy God Star, which had been transported to the port in advance, were loaded onto the freighter.
After refueling, the large freighter began its voyage once more, heading for Ceres at a speed several times faster than the other freighters.
Not long after this freighter left, a second one equipped with second-stage pressurized thrusters arrived. It, too, unloaded its cargo, refueled, loaded supplies, and began its return journey.
Ship after ship came and went, and went and came. During this process, the newly equipped second-stage pressurized thrusters underwent one test after another.
Every time a freighter returned, Li Qingsong would be at the spaceport to give it a full inspection, checking for malfunctions and assessing its operational status.
Through this process, Li Qingsong gathered a vast amount of data and came up with numerous detailed proposals for improvement.
This went on for some time. While the new Thrust Devices frequently suffered minor glitches, there hadn't been a single major failure.
This situation, however, did not make Li Qingsong happy; instead, he grew faintly worried.
He didn't believe the first-generation second-stage pressurized thrusters were already fully mature.
Li Qingsong wasn't that arrogant.
'Why did I rush them into service?'
'Wasn't it to expose their hidden problems and defects as much as possible? That way, I could eliminate them beforehand, so they wouldn't blow up in my face when I start the mass migration.'
'And all I'm getting are these trivial little glitches, minor defects, and insignificant problems?'
'Is this paltry stuff all you've got to test me with?'
'Could it be... that the real problems or flaws are buried so deep they won't surface in a short time?'
After some thought, Li Qingsong went ahead and built another twenty freighters of the same model. He put them on the round-trip route between Ceres and Enemy God Star as well.
If the probability of a particular failure was fixed, then forcing it to occur required either extending the operational time or increasing the number of cycles.
And so, dozens of 80,000-ton freighters began a constant shuttle run. Even if there wasn't enough cargo, they had to keep moving. He couldn't let them sit idle. Even if it meant hauling basic ores with no delivery deadline, they had to be fully loaded and kept in continuous flight.
Under these conditions, the event Li Qingsong had been long awaiting finally occurred.
A freighter suddenly exploded during its acceleration phase. The entire ship was blasted in two!
It blew up!
The ship finally blew up!
At that moment, Li Qingsong was filled with a profound sense of exhilaration.
The Deep Space salvage fleet, long on standby, set out immediately. It raced toward the explosion site, fully loaded with all manner of search and recovery equipment.
Simultaneously, Li Qingsong immediately pulled up the ship's real-time operational data, which was always being saved. He began to go through it, searching for the potential cause of the failure.
After more than a month of hard work, Li Qingsong finally pinpointed an extremely well-hidden design flaw.
Unlike the minor glitches and problems from before, this design flaw involved the entire structure of the engine!
To fix this problem, Li Qingsong had to scrap over 70% of the first-generation engine's design during the R&D of the second-generation model.
The problem was severe, the failure was catastrophic, and the effort required to fix it would be immense. Yet, Li Qingsong felt no burden or worry. Instead, he was filled with joy.
'This is exactly what I wanted... It seems increasing the operational frequency and number of ships really is the best way to expose flaws.'
'Hmm... I'll have to keep them running. Even if it's just hauling rocks, they have to keep flying!'
While engrossed in the design and R&D of the second-generation engine, Li Qingsong kept the dozens of heavy freighters in space on their busy shuttle runs.
Time trickled by as Li Qingsong waited in anticipation. After more than a month, a second, fairly serious failure finally occurred.
As one of the freighters was ending its inertial flight phase and about to begin its deceleration burn, its Thrust Device failed. It wouldn't ignite.
Based on its current trajectory, the eighty-thousand-plus-ton heavy freighter was on a collision course with Ceres, set to impact at a speed of dozens of kilometers per second!
'Good! So it's finally revealed itself?'
While directing the Clones aboard the ship to begin their inspection, Li Qingsong also implemented his backup plan.
Several tugboats launched quickly, secured the freighter with cables, and nudged its trajectory just slightly off course.
This would allow it to skirt past Ceres instead of crashing into it.
With the imminent crisis averted, more Clones arrived in space with more equipment to inspect the freighter right there.
After a period of frantic work, Li Qingsong finally discovered the source of the major failure: a tiny gasket.
This gasket had been subjected to long-term bombardment by high-energy radiation. Its molecular structure had changed, leading to some unexpected alterations in its properties. Though originally non-conductive, it had become capable of conducting electricity under certain special conditions. This created a disturbance within the engine, causing the malfunction and ultimately preventing ignition.
This also hinted at a much worse possibility.
'If this gasket could change like this under harsh operating conditions, what about the other components?'
'Another extremely serious, deeply hidden problem. Thank goodness I found it early. Otherwise, if it had blown up during the actual migration, then...'
Li Qingsong was filled with relief.
He immediately launched a comprehensive review of the tens of millions of components that made up a single second-stage pressurized thruster, identifying every part that could potentially fail for a similar reason.
Once the problem was identified, there was nothing to worry about. He just had to solve it.
After two more fairly serious failures occurred in succession, an entire six months passed without another failure of the same magnitude.
Li Qingsong subsequently finalized the blueprints for the Gen-2 thruster and immediately put it into production.
This second-generation second-stage pressurized thruster not only fixed all the problems and flaws of the first generation, but it was also smaller and lighter, with even greater overall fuel efficiency!
He had the Thrust Devices on the existing cargo freighters dismantled and replaced with the new models. A new round of large-scale testing began.
After two full years of testing, Li Qingsong was finally certain: the second-generation second-stage pressurized thruster was truly stable.
'Well then... it's time to go.'