159: Chapter 159 Near-orbit Space Base: A City Grows in the Sky!
Alien Civilization Voyage Timer, Day 9.
Pangu Laboratory, Level B2, to the right of the control console.
On the massive monitoring wall composed of twelve screens, real-time footage of low-Earth orbit occupied seven.
After the annular base of the Dry Dock was fully closed, the five hundred infrastructure robots hadn't rested for a single second.
Divided into thirty-six groups, they were synchronously erecting the first layer of vertical support columns for the keel truss along the forty-eight base anchor points on the inner ring of the base.
Su Che stood before the whiteboard.
The whiteboard was covered with handwritten algorithmic flowcharts, with red marker arrows crisscrossing in a way that looked like a spiderweb splashed with ketchup.
"The robot group at anchor point number eleven reported a docking deviation." Wen Bo walked over, carrying an enamel mug with a line of faded text printed on the side that read, "National Model Worker."
Su Che picked up a red pen and circled the coordinate value corresponding to number eleven on the whiteboard.
"What's the deviation?"
"Zero point seven millimeters."
The pen in Su Che's hand paused.
Zero point seven millimeters—in ground construction, this figure would be negligible.
But the total span of the Dry Dock's keel truss exceeded two thousand meters, and the error would snowball, growing larger and larger.
After all one thousand two hundred support columns were erected, the cumulative deviation at the end could potentially exceed twenty centimeters.
Twenty centimeters was enough to cause a fatal structural crack during the final assembly of a one-hundred-thousand-ton mothership.
Su Che erased a section of calculation formulas on the whiteboard and started re-deriving them.
What he needed wasn't to correct a single anchor point, but to enable the five hundred robots to achieve sub-millimeter global self-calibration under distributed collaborative working conditions.
Four days.
Over the next four days, Su Che did not leave Level B2.
He broke down the precision docking algorithm for orbital components into seven sub-modules and ran simulations for each one in the digital orbital space of the Mirror World.
The Mirror World contained a one-to-one digital twin of the Dry Dock.
The physical parameters of every truss, every robot, and every piece of special sintered regolith substrate were all mapped in real-time.
Su Che blew up the Dry Dock three times in the virtual environment.
The first time, the docking tolerance was set too high, and the keel truss snapped in the middle during stress loading tests.
The second time, the global calibration frequency was too high, causing the robots' plasma thruster fuel consumption to exceed estimates by four times, leading to all five hundred robots "breaking down" in the virtual space.
The third time, after he modified a version of the adaptive compensation algorithm, the calibration accuracy met the standard, but the computational latency spiked from zero point three milliseconds to one point eight milliseconds.
A latency of one point eight milliseconds meant that two robots could potentially collide during high-speed docking operations.
Su Che read the crash logs of the third simulation from beginning to end twice.
He deleted forty percent of the redundant verification logic in the adaptive compensation module.
The Yiren AI Core intervened synchronously and ran a six-hundred-thousand-cycle Monte Carlo simulation.
The latency dropped to zero point two milliseconds. The accuracy was locked at plus or minus zero point zero three millimeters.
Su Che uploaded the optimized algorithm package to the robot cluster four hundred kilometers above.
In real orbit, the five hundred silver-gray robots completed their firmware update in almost the exact same second.
The docking movements changed visibly to the naked eye.
Previously, the robots would hover for about zero point five seconds before docking, as if hesitating.
After the firmware update, the hovering disappeared.
The robotic arms reached out directly, components slid into the slots, and the plasma welding torches ignited.
It was done in one smooth motion.
Wen Bo leaned against the monitoring wall, forgetting even to put down his enamel mug.
"This smoothness..." The old academician took a breath. "It's even more fluid than the best machinist I ever saw in the workshop back in my day."
...
Alien Civilization Voyage Timer, Day 13.
Pangu Laboratory, Level B2.
Su Che sat at the control console eating lunch; inside his aluminum lunchbox were stir-fried pork with chili and white rice.
Lin Waner put down the lunchbox and left without staying long.
Over these past few days, she had figured out Su Che's work habits: the food was placed within reach, and the water was placed where his elbow wouldn't knock it over.
The data on the monitoring wall refreshed.
Keel truss first layer vertical support columns: 100% complete.
Second layer horizontal connecting beams: 31% complete.
Su Che shoveled a mouthful of rice, his gaze sweeping over a set of numbers in the corner of the screen.
Global docking accuracy of the robot cluster: plus or minus zero point zero two eight millimeters.
It was zero point zero zero two lower than the upper limit he had set.
The luan bird verification ship transported countless prefabricated components and special substrates into orbit.
Lieutenant General Peng Zhenbang was using the launch base at Jiuquan like an assembly line workshop.
The verification ship landed, loaded cargo, launched, unloaded, and returned.
Two sorties a day, with intervals of no more than six hours.
Su Che's main focus over the past few days had shifted from docking precision to in-situ resource utilization in space and infrastructure scheduling.
In plain terms, it was about how to teach the robots to use local materials and how to get five hundred robots to work on the same construction site without getting in each other's way.
The logic of the scheduling algorithm was three times more complex than the docking algorithm.
The five hundred robots were divided into thirty-six work groups, each with different operational areas, procedural sequences, and material supply rhythms.
What Su Che needed to do was create a construction schedule accurate to the second, and this schedule had to be able to automatically adjust to unexpected situations at any time.
He rebuilt the digital model of the Dry Dock in the Mirror World; this time, he wasn't testing for destruction, but for efficiency.
After running twenty-seven versions of the scheduling strategy, construction efficiency had increased by forty-three percent compared to the initial version.
Su Che pushed the final version of the scheduling algorithm package to orbit.
The results were immediate.
On the monitoring screen, the movement trajectories of the robot swarm changed from "each doing their own thing" to a synergy that resembled a choreographed dance.
Three robots were responsible for carrying, positioning, and welding respectively; they worked alternately on the same crossbeam, maintaining a spacing of two meters without collisions or waiting.
Academician Li Zhengyang walked over from the power group, carrying his thermos, the lid of which he could never screw on tight.
He stood in front of the monitoring wall and watched for three seconds.
"If this thing were moved to the ground, it could build a Three Gorges Dam in a month."
Su Che pushed the empty lunchbox aside.
"It only has this efficiency in a zero-gravity environment."
"No kidding."
Academician Li Zhengyang tried to tighten the lid, but failed, spilling a few drops of water on the floor. "It's not like I don't understand physics."
...
Alien Civilization Voyage Timer, Day 16.
The in-situ space resource utilization module completed its final test.
Simply put, it was teaching the robots to take existing objects in space, such as derelict satellite debris or captured small meteorite fragments, and process them on-site into usable construction materials.
The in-orbit 3D printing equipment consumed a palm-sized piece of nickel-iron meteorite debris and spat out a standard-specification structural connector.
The entire process took four minutes and twelve seconds.
Su Che signed the test report.
The full-system integration of the infrastructure scheduling system began on the fourteenth day and lasted until the end of the sixteenth day.
The core of the integration was to fully connect the four technologies—autonomous space construction, precision orbital docking, in-situ resource utilization, and infrastructure scheduling—to operate as a single whole.
This was the most difficult part.
The four subsystems ran fine on their own, but when combined, a pile of engineering problems emerged, such as competition for computing power, signal channel conflicts, and command priority conflicts.
Su Che and Liu Huaqiang's team spent three full days, with the collaborative support of the Pangu Quantum Computer and the Yiren AI Core, eliminating the conflict items one by one.
Eleven o'clock at night.
The last conflict item was eliminated.
The integration curves of the four subsystems converged into a smooth green line on the main screen.
No jitter, no red alerts.
Su Che leaned against the edge of the control console, staring at that green line for over ten seconds.
He pulled the portable smart milk tea machine from under the desk and pressed the hot chocolate mode.
The machine whirred for twenty seconds and dispensed a cup of thick cocoa.
Su Che picked it up, took a sip, and turned to walk out of Level B2.
The corridor was empty.
He raised the cup toward the ceiling, as if offering a toast to the behemoth taking shape four hundred kilometers above.
...
Alien Civilization Voyage Timer, Day 19.
Two o'clock in the afternoon, Pangu Laboratory, Level B2.
Real-time footage of the Dry Dock hung in the center of the monitoring wall.
The main body of the keel truss was more than half complete, with the massive metal framework extending from the annular base in all directions, like ribs growing from a spine.
The laying of the enclosed final assembly module hull was proceeding in an orderly manner.
Dark gray special thermal insulation panels covered the outside of the truss, shimmering with a dull metallic luster under the sunlight.
Su Che sat at the control console.
The full-link acceptance data for the low-Earth orbit space infrastructure system was spread out on the screen; all four core indicators—docking precision, construction efficiency, in-situ utilization conversion rate, and scheduling response latency—had met or exceeded the standards.
He typed four words on the last line of the acceptance report.
"Acceptance passed."
In his mind, a long-absent, crisp mechanical voice popped up.
[Ding! Main R&D task "The Earth is too small to hold the cradle of the behemoth!" completed!]
[Full-link acceptance of the low-Earth orbit space infrastructure system passed! Autonomous space construction efficiency exceeded the target by 43%, orbital component docking precision reached plus or minus 0.028 mm, in-situ resource utilization conversion rate reached 82%, and infrastructure scheduling response latency was 0.09 ms!]
[Task reward: 180,000 skill points!]
Su Che pushed his chair back half a body length.
One hundred and eighty thousand.
Combined with the remaining points in the main pool, it was enough for him to fully load up on ammunition for the next R&D phase.
He closed the panel and looked up at the monitoring wall.
In the footage, the five hundred robots were still working tirelessly.
The white light of the plasma welding torches flickered on and off against the pitch-black space background.
The luan bird verification ship was docked at the edge of the Dry Dock, its cargo bay door wide open, and a new batch of components was being extracted one by one by robotic arms.
The azure arc of the Earth slowly glided across the bottom of the screen.
The outline of the Dry Dock could already be captured by high-powered optical telescopes on the ground.
An artificial metal skeleton, hanging in the night sky, mixed in among the stars.
Su Che stood up.
Wen Bo walked over from the test area; the tea in his enamel mug had been replaced with plain boiled water.
"The overall construction progress of the Dry Dock is accelerating." Wen Bo slapped a statistical table on the table. "Based on the current construction rate, it might be completed within two months."
Su Che picked up the statistical table, scanned it, folded it, and shoved it into his pants pocket.
"About right."
He walked toward the hall exit.
"Next, it's time to start filling the skeleton."