Amid a thunderous roar that tore through the clear sky, the Rosy Glow descended vertically onto the landing pad, framed by four azure plumes.
Surrounded by ground crew, the two astronauts climbed down the spacecraft's boarding ladder, waved to the reporters in the distance, then boarded a shuttle to the infirmary for a simple examination.
The 72-hour flight mission had concluded successfully!
The successful test flight was nothing short of textbook-perfect.
It proved that Lu Zhou's conclusion had been correct.
Although there was still some deviation from the theoretical data, the Rosy Glow's propellant loss during its return from low Earth orbit into the atmosphere had decreased significantly.
Especially during the denser layers of the atmosphere.
Not only that, because the spacecraft's speed had already dropped to a relatively low level while still in outer space, the heat generated during reentry was also considerably reduced, indirectly lowering the Rosy Glow's maintenance costs.
With the success of this test flight, the Rosy Glow would officially enter service at the Jinling Aerospace Launch Center, sharing responsibility for launches to Earth-Moon Transfer Orbit with the Auspicious.
Meanwhile, the day after the Rosy Glow completed its 72-hour cruise and returned to Earth, the Auspicious, which had been carrying out its mission in Lunar Orbit, also landed on the runway at the Jinling Launch Center.
By the time Nie Yun and the others had departed Lunar Orbit, the Moon Palace spacecraft's core module had already been in service for two weeks. During that two-week observation period, the core module had operated extremely well, with none of the contingencies anticipated in the emergency plans occurring.
Watching the two astronauts, Nie Yun and Nie Han, step down from the Auspicious, Academician Yuan Huanmin finally let out a sigh of relief in the command tower.
For the past