Vol 6 Chapter 3239: Pathfinder of the Mars Exploration Program

【Revision】

…

"In addition to power guarantee, we have also put a lot of effort into materials this time. Considering that our Mars patrol vehicle has to travel a lot of distance on the surface of Mars but work for many years, we have a lot of choices for the material selection of the entire vehicle. higher requirements.

Especially for the wheels that are most prone to wear, we have specially developed a high-strength and wear-resistant material for them. Its condition is similar to that of ordinary rubber tires, but it is stronger and has strong flexibility and support. .

And it also has a major advantage, that is, it can remain stable at low temperatures and will not lose elasticity at low temperatures like ordinary rubber tires.

Finally, there is the wear resistance. Its wear resistance is more than ten times that of ordinary tires.

If the life of ordinary tires is about five to one hundred thousand kilometers, then the life of this tire reaches hundreds of thousands of kilometers.

Of course, due to the complex road conditions on Mars, the lifespan will definitely be reduced. But its lifespan is far better than the hollow tires on traditional exploration vehicles.

And compared with the form's passability and off-road performance, as well as the overall energy consumption during driving of the vehicle, the disadvantage of being heavier than traditional hollow tires is not a disadvantage. "

"In addition to the roving vehicle tires, we use a large number of composite materials on this Mars roving vehicle. And these materials vary according to needs. For example, for some long-term working parts, we use high-strength and wear-resistant composite materials. Good material, this material can withstand long-term wear and tear.

For another example, we use high-strength and high-toughness materials for some places that are subject to relatively large forces. While ensuring strength, it also ensures sufficient toughness so that it will not break directly due to bearing too much weight. "

"Of course, these alone are not enough. No matter how excellent these materials are, they still cannot withstand the ravages of time. Even the best materials will have problems.

So this time we equipped the vehicle with a parts box, which contains many spare parts to ensure that if the patrol vehicle breaks down during its future driving work on Mars, the parts can be replaced, thus greatly extending the service life of the patrol vehicle. operating service life. "

"In view of the possible flowing surface water on Mars, we have also performed water discharge treatment on this patrol vehicle so that it can swim up to one meter of water depth.

In this way, even if we do discover flowing surface liquid water on Mars in the future, we can still go in and investigate. "

At this point, Zhou Xiangming felt that his mouth was a little dry, so he immediately took a sip of the red wine that the flight attendant had brought to him, moistened his throat, and then continued to speak.

“With a strong hardware foundation, we have to equip it with a powerful software system.

On this Mars patrol vehicle, we have equipped it with the most powerful intelligent control system that humans have ever equipped on an extraterrestrial patrol vehicle.

This set of intelligent control systems is developed based on the intelligent control systems on our Wangshu-1 and Wangshu-2 vehicles, and is based on the problems encountered by our Wangshu-1 and Wangshu-2 vehicles during their long maneuvering on the moon. Problems are all generated into the large AI model, trained, and then integrated with our daily training results, so that this intelligent control system can handle various situations with ease and will not cause downtime due to unknown situations. machine situation occurs.

And in the process of inspection and detection, this system will continue to learn, adapt and evolve, becoming more and more advanced and easier to use.

This data will also be transmitted back simultaneously to help us train a more powerful intelligent control system for the Mars roving rover. "