Super technology leader

The existence of Interstellar Pilot has indeed broken many people's inherent cognition.

No way, the company's rise is too fast.

Iterative technology upgrades are even more outrageous.

If it weren’t for some of the Navigator’s technologies more advanced than the Tianxia Aerospace National Team’s technology, everyone else would think it was a private vest of the National Team.

Even if this is the case, the 32-ton Mars detection equipment that StarNavigator has come up with really scared everyone.

Previously, Tianxia’s first autonomous Mars exploration device, "Tianwen No. 1," weighed more than 5 tons, breaking the weight record of planetary exploration equipment. The unmanned spacecraft came out even more ruined, forcing the international aerospace field to directly give it a lift. Level, put it into the "spaceship" category, or other people's detectors don't have to play.

And now, with the opening of the cargo warehouse of the "Pathfinder" landing module, the real Mars rover and larger Mars rover are here.

This is the "detector" on the unmanned detection spacecraft. The cargo warehouse doors on both sides are opened, and the upper mechanical arms put down the helicopter and the rover respectively.

There is nothing more to say about the rover, it still looks like a traditional Mars unmanned rover, and there is no pressurized space.

Compared with the previous Mars unmanned rover, the "Land Trailblazer" rover of Interstellar Navigator is bigger and carries more experimental equipment, which is really comparable to a mobile laboratory.

Because there is no pressurized space, astronauts cannot be driven like in a science fiction movie.

However, because it is large enough, astronauts can still use it in sitting, standing, or hanging positions.

It is even equipped with a separate remote control system that can replace the slow autopilot mode with astronaut driving skills.

If nothing happens, it can be used normally for a long time, so some of its designs take care of future use.

After all, with such a big size, it is too uneconomical to build a purely unmanned vehicle at this time node. This kind of unmanned vehicle for alien surface exploration is notoriously "snail crawling."

The "Sky Trailblazer" that was put down on the other side was the highlight.

This helicopter is not a traditional helicopter shape, but more like a large UAV, more symmetrical.

Because as far as the installation of scientific research equipment is concerned, the long "tail" of the helicopter is useless at all.

Strictly speaking, it is not the first unmanned helicopter on Mars. The first unmanned helicopter is Meriken's "Witty", although it is only 1.8 kilograms.

It doesn't matter how small it is, but it has a very big ambition.

"The Wright brothers showed that airplanes heavier than air can fly in the Earth's atmosphere, and we have to prove that airplanes can also fly in the atmosphere of Mars."

Of course, Mars, which does not even have a runway, will not test fixed-wing aircraft, and start with the rotor helicopter.

But it is not an easy task to make the rotorcraft fly on Mars.

The size of the "Giz" helicopter is very small, the diameter of the propeller is 1.2 meters, the height of the aircraft is 0.8 meters, and the diameter of the rotor is much longer than the length of the fuselage instrument bay.

The overall structure is a pair of coaxially inverted propellers, 4 stand-type landing support devices, a 14 cm side-length cubic instrument compartment, with a solar panel on the top, which can provide 350 watts of power, and the total mass is 1.8 kg.

The speed of its coaxial propeller is close to 3000 revolutions per minute. This speed has caught up with the speed of the propeller of a fixed-wing propeller aircraft, while the rotor speed of a general helicopter on the earth is only a few hundred revolutions per minute.

It has a maximum flight distance of 300 meters, a radio control range of 1 kilometers, a maximum flight altitude of only 5 meters, a maximum horizontal flight speed of 10 meters per second, and a vertical speed of 3 meters per second.

Judging from this data, it can't even reach the standard of a drone, but it has to fly on the surface of Mars. The data we see are only appearances.

The temperature range on the surface of Mars is minus 90 degrees Celsius, and some areas will be even colder. The atmospheric pressure is only 1% of that of the earth, which is a disaster for aircraft.

The principle of airplane take-off is to rely on the pressure difference between the upper and lower surfaces of the wing to obtain lift. The low atmospheric density of Mars indicates that its flight environment is very harsh.

At the same time, the gravitational force of Mars is only one third of that of the earth, which puts forward higher requirements for landing and hovering.

Therefore, the 5 meters flight environment of the unmanned helicopter on Mars is equivalent to the earth's atmosphere at an altitude of 30,000 meters.

Not to mention helicopters at this altitude, even a special fighter can not fly at this altitude. The legendary Blackbird reconnaissance aircraft has a maximum ceiling of about 30,000 meters.

Take the Black Hawk helicopter as an example. It has a ceiling of 5,700 meters. The Llama helicopter has set a ceiling of 12,442 meters in the plain area. The Tianxia plateau helicopter flew over Mount Everest at an altitude of 9,000 meters.

But flying at this extreme altitude, even the control is very reluctant, let alone the precise execution of certain tasks.

Think about it, the "Witty" helicopter can theoretically fly at an altitude of 30,000 meters on the earth, which is quite impressive.

Of course, that is only a theory, because the duration from takeoff to landing is only 90 seconds.

The "Sky Trailblazer" is basically an extremely enlarged version of the "Witty", which has expanded from 1.8 kg to more than 5,000 kg, which is more than 5 tons.

Calculating with the data of "Wizard", you can imagine how big it is.

There are a lot of equipment on it, the most important thing is the power generation device, without electricity, it can't fly.

And its current state on Mars can be regarded as "isolated", so if you want it to work for a long time, you must ensure that its power is continuous, even if it can't be done, it can't be a one-off.

So there is a comprehensive power supply and storage system of isotope decay heat batteries, solar panels and batteries covered in the fuselage, but this is not the core technology, the most core technology is the complex power conversion device that can be used on Mars.

Because whether it is isotope decay thermal batteries or solar panels, their power is not high. If you want to make an isolated helicopter work for a long time, you must let the helicopter have "inexhaustible" energy, just these two are suitable.

However, their power is not high, so advanced power conversion devices are needed.

With this thing, it can fly for two hours at a time, fly a distance of several hundred kilometers, then land for half an hour, and then continue flying.

The atmosphere of Mars is too thin, so it does not fly high, and the practical ceiling is only 100 meters. This height can almost guarantee that it can fly straight over many terrains.

In this process, various equipment can operate continuously, and their electricity consumption can be guaranteed.

Fortunately, Kan Xing is already considering the miniaturization of nuclear fusion devices. After a few days or months, Ao, talking about the time on the Earth side, will probably be available.

Now this, make do with it.

So in the envied and shocked eyes of billions of people on the earth, this "giant" unmanned helicopter, which was made-up, turned its six big wheels and walked forward.

Yes, the bottom of the "Sky Trailblazer" is wheels, not landing brackets. After all, it is very close to the landing device when it is lowered by the robotic arm. In that case, it is not easy to take off.

And when it flies over certain targets, it will not or cannot land in the right position when landing, so these wheels are needed to move it to the right position.

So after it moved to the right position, the huge propeller started to rotate.

From the very beginning, it turned slowly, then heard the rapid rotation of "whoop", and finally the rapid rotation of "humming".

This scene is displayed on the screens of billions of people on the earth through the landing module camera next to it, traversing hundreds of millions of kilometers of the starry sky.

The audience watching the live broadcast can clearly see that in the red dust flying, the huge rotor drove the "Sky Trailblazer" to fly on the surface of Mars!