"Meet the sea along the Yellow River" is the romantic description of the land of Qilu by Shandong people. Shandong is a veritable maritime province, with a coastline of more than 3,500 kilometers, accounting for about 1/6 of the country's mainland coastline. In 2018, Shandong's marine strategy was upgraded again to transform marine advantages into development advantages.
Let's visit two ships together, they are not ordinary ships! One pursues dreams, the other deeply cultivates the ocean, and both have the name of "first".
Eastern Spaceport: Industrial clusters help sea launch to explore the sky
Su Qiqi: This is the launch platform of the Ceres-1 launch vehicle, but this launch platform is a bit special because it is a ship.
The huge ship in front of us, named the Oriental Spaceport, is the first multi-functional ship for sea space launch and recovery in China, and its stable hull design and cutting-edge technical support enable the rocket to be stably launched on the vast sea and accurately enter the predetermined orbit.
Sun Jianjun, project leader of the Oriental Spaceport: It has been specially designed, the whole ship is 160 meters long, 40 meters wide, and the deck area is more than 4,000 square meters, which is equivalent to the size of 40 standard basketball courts; The main deck has been strengthened and has a carrying capacity of 20 tons per square meter, which can withstand the weight of a dozen family cars. In terms of capabilities, we can carry multiple rockets at once.
Reporter Su Qiqi: How strong is the "order-taking" ability of the Oriental Spaceport? Up to now, it has successfully supported 11 sea launch missions of the Continental-4 rocket, and a total of 61 satellites have been successfully launched into space through sea launches, with a success rate of 100 percent.
The Oriental Spaceport successfully connected the stars and the sea for the sea launch of the mainland's commercial spaceflight, and also allowed the small city of Yantai Haiyang to see the opportunity and embark on a new development track.
Zhang Hua, Deputy General Manager of Dongfang Spaceport: The rocket launch in 2019 was from the dock under my feet, realizing the first sea launch of a rocket in China's history. After this launch, we had the idea to build an aerospace industry in Hai Duong.
Reporter Su Qiqi: This was the Oriental Spaceport before the construction, and Yantai Haiyang did not have a name in the aerospace industry at that time.
This is now the Vostok spaceport, rockets, satellites...... A number of high-tech aerospace enterprises gather here.
The biggest difficulty in achieving the leap from a sea launch to an emerging industry lies in how to attract enterprises related to the high-tech aerospace industry chain to "settle down" in the small city of Hai Duong.
Zhang Hua, Deputy General Manager of Oriental Spaceport: This is the industrial layout of Oriental Spaceport, we have built a physical platform for enterprises, but also built an industrial platform and a platform for entrepreneurship.
Guarding the golden sign of "Sea Launch", the Oriental Spaceport breaks through the traditional industrial development model, does not follow the old path of building industrial parks and relies on taxation, injects capital into commercial aerospace enterprises with growth potential but lacks funds, attracts key manufacturers in the industrial chain to settle down for terminal enterprises to reduce costs, provides a better R&D platform for scientific research teams, and achieves a win-win situation by group development.
At 13:30 on January 11, 2024, the Gravity-1 Yao-1 commercial launch vehicle developed and produced by Dongfang Space, a local commercial rocket company in Haiyang, was successfully launched. This rocket not only broke many records such as the world's largest solid launch vehicle and China's largest private commercial launch vehicle, but also witnessed the industrial cluster effect of the Eastern Spaceport.
Zhang Tao, chief designer of the "Gravity-1" rocket: Many high-tech enterprises in the park can provide us with some key equipment support, for example, the launch pad we are currently in and the flip frame over there are all produced by the enterprises in the park, which reduces our development costs. In addition, the Hai Duong government has also provided us with a lot of financial support, so that we can build a better team, and we have also made breakthroughs in more key technologies in rocket launches.
"Guoxin No. 1": a mobile "marine ranch"
From the sky to the sea, to wisdom and to the new, Shandong is telling the story of the ocean in the new era. The following boat has something to do with the fishing industry, but it's definitely more than you think!
Reporter Li Bingchan: The ship I'm on is sailing in the northern part of the East China Sea in Zhoushan, Zhejiang, about 50 nautical miles from the coast. The ship is 249.9 meters long and 45 meters wide, and the deck area alone is the size of 26 basketball courts. Since its launch in 2022, it has sailed more than 12,000 nautical miles.
Raise fish first and then catch fish, and directly process and send them ashore, the big guy "Guoxin No. 1" looks a little "cool". It is the world's first 100,000-ton intelligent fishery large-scale aquaculture ship, which looks like a freighter on the outside, but there are 15 breeding cabins inside, and 90,000 cubic meters of aquaculture water, imagine 47 standard swimming pools full of large yellow croaker, what kind of scene is that!
"Guoxin No. 1" breeding technology engineer Sun Linlin: The breeding tank as a whole is similar to a large fish tank, but the difference with the fish tank is that the water in our breeding tank is living water, which is continuously pumped 15 meters below the surface of the water outside the ship through the seawater pump 24 hours a day to add to the breeding cabin, and by the way push our original old water to be discharged to the outside of the breeding cabin.
Reporter Li Bingchan: I think there is a big whirlpool in the middle, what is this for?
"Guoxin No. 1" breeding technology engineer Sun Linlin: This is also a magic weapon for our fish farming, through the water inlet and drainage design, so as to form a three-dimensional vortex in the center. The habit of large yellow croaker is to like to swim against the current, we let the large yellow croaker always swim at the top of the current, and the meat quality of the large yellow croaker produced is firmer and more delicious.
Sun Linlin, Breeding Technical Engineer of "Guoxin No. 1": Fish feed also has many characteristics, it can float on the surface of the water. Because according to the habits of the large yellow croaker, if the feed sinks to the bottom of the water, the large yellow croaker will basically not eat, which will cause waste of bait and pollute the water body. Our high-quality compound feed, the quality will be more stable, a few times a day, how much each meal, we can achieve precise control, so as to achieve refined, scientific breeding.
The water quality of the open sea is good, the ship floats on the sea, and the water temperature suitable for the growth of the large yellow croaker goes, so that the fish have been in the best growth period, and the breeding cycle has been shortened from more than one year to half a year for offshore aquaculture.
The fry are put into the cabin, fed and raised, and harvested and processed, all of which can be completed by a working boat, and they can be directly packed ashore in 6 hours.
What should I do if there is a typhoon or red tide? We can't afford to hide, where the safe boat goes.
Sun Linlin, Aquaculture Technical Engineer of "Guoxin No. 1": My bachelor's and master's degrees were in aquaculture, but at that time, I was more exposed to traditional aquaculture production methods. I didn't expect our country to turn it into a reality so quickly, and I look forward to more and larger aquaculture ships in the future, cruising in the seas of our motherland.
Source: CCTV news client