170: Chapter 170 The final assembly plan is locked, the first ray of light in the optical path!
Alien civilization navigation timer, day fifty-three.
Pangu Laboratory, B2 level, 8:20 AM.
Zhao Mingyuan spread a simulation report over the keyboard in front of Su Che, a number written in pencil on the top right corner of the first page: 5.63.
"Eight sets of asymmetric auxiliary field sources, ran all night."
Zhao Mingyuan pulled up a chair and sat on it sideways, arms resting on the top of the backrest.
"The static compensation limit was pushed down from 6.8 picometers to 5.63, which is 0.07 lower than the 5.7 I estimated yesterday."
Su Che pulled out the report and flipped to the convergence curve on the fourth page.
The tail end of the curve was almost flat against the horizontal axis, the residual deviation stabilizing around 5.6, no longer dropping.
"There is enough margin left for dynamic calibration." He closed the report, "The compensation algorithm is officially finalized, push it to the encrypted repository for archiving."
Zhao Mingyuan pushed himself up from the backrest and took the report away.
"Underlying architecture plus compensation algorithm, two tough nuts cracked."
As he walked back to his workstation, he muttered, "Next is the optical path, I can't get my hands on that stuff."
"You take on the deposition arrangement." Su Che pushed access permissions for a technical document to Zhao Mingyuan's terminal, "The kinematics planning for the atomic deposition path, your foundation in cybernetics is stronger than mine."
Zhao Mingyuan opened the document, scanned it twice, said nothing, and directly created a new code branch.
On the east side of the hall, in the U-shaped array area, came the sound of chairs moving.
Liu Huaqiang stood in front of the whiteboard, a mechanical pencil clamped between his index and middle fingers, using it as a baton.
The whiteboard was covered in boxes and arrows, and the assembly sequence for the four subsystems was marked in three sets of alternative plans using red, blue, and black markers.
"Red plan, stack assembly first, thermal control last."
He poked the red arrow with the tip of his pencil, "Blue plan, thermal control and shielding layer installed simultaneously, stack assembly last. Black plan..."
"The black one is scrapped."
Wen Bo strolled over from the material area carrying an enamel mug; the "National Model Worker" on the side of the mug revealed all five characters today.
"The vacuum interface of the Helium-3 separation module and the reserved hole positions of the shielding layer are off by two millimeters. The assembly sequence of the black plan would make these two millimeters a dead zone, with a one hundred percent probability of rework."
Liu Huaqiang drew a big cross over the arrows of the black plan.
"Red or blue?"
"Blue." Wen Bo took a sip of water, "The advantage of installing the thermal control and shielding layer simultaneously is that it shortens the lunar surface construction time by one-third, and the scheduling path for the robotic arm is also shorter."
Academician Li Zhengyang came around from the direction of the folding table, holding his thermos without drinking.
"I've calculated the thermal expansion timing for the blue plan; if the thermal control system is powered on and preheated for four hours, the thermal expansion of the shielding layer will be within the preload range."
He placed the cup on the bottom ledge of the whiteboard, "I revised the final version of the interface protocol last night; the communication handshake latency for the four subsystems has been pushed down to 0.03 milliseconds."
Liu Huaqiang signed next to the blue plan, writing today's date.
"Final assembly plan, locked."
Liu Huaqiang erased all the content of the red and black plans on the whiteboard, leaving only the blue one.
"Run the full system integration simulation this afternoon; use the lunar environment model in the Mirror World that Chief Engineer Su built earlier."
He put away his pencil and tucked it behind his ear, "If it passes once, we call it a day; if it doesn't, we keep modifying until it does."
Wen Bo placed his enamel mug next to the bottom ledge of the whiteboard, side by side with Academician Li Zhengyang's thermos.
"Two cups, one enamel and one stainless steel." Wen Bo glanced at them, "Just like our aesthetics, they don't match at all."
Academician Li Zhengyang picked up his cup and didn't respond.
Su Che heard the word "locked" from the main console and glanced at the whiteboard on the east side.
From initiation to completion, the final assembly plan for the lunar energy station took three days.
There was nothing to complain about regarding the efficiency of Liu Huaqiang's team.
He withdrew his gaze and opened the technical document for the sub-nanometer optical path design.
The optical path module is the most precise organ of the entire integrated machine.
The quantum coherent state optical field is emitted from the light source cavity, focused step by step through twelve main reflective mirrors, and finally forms a light spot with a diameter of 0.05 nanometers on the substrate surface.
0.05 nanometers, which is about one-sixth of a silicon atom.
The optical field must maintain absolute coherence at this scale.
Any surface defect on any reflective mirror, any vibration in any part of the optical path, or any slight temperature fluctuation will cause the light spot to defocus.
Su Che created a new independent simulation space in the background of the Mirror World.
The space was very small, only a one-meter square virtual vacuum chamber.
He placed the light source cavity model at the left end, the substrate target at the right end, and set up two virtual reflective mirrors in the middle.
The complete optical path of twelve mirrors is too complex, so he used two to verify the basic focusing logic first.
The light source parameters were adjusted to the theoretical values.
The wavelength of the quantum coherent state optical field is 0.01 nanometers.
Start.
The virtual light beam was emitted from the light source cavity and hit the first mirror.
The reflection angle was precise.
The beam jumped to the second mirror.
Reflected again.
The light spot landed on the substrate target.
Su Che pulled up the intensity distribution map of the light spot.
The central peak was bright, but a ring of diffuse halo appeared at the edges.
Diffraction effect.
For an optical field with a wavelength as short as 0.01 nanometers, the diffraction limit is also compressed to the extreme.
However, the limited aperture of the mirror surface will still truncate part of the wavefront, causing edge dispersion.
"The aperture is not enough." Su Che measured the geometric parameters of the virtual mirror surface.
The solution provided in the theoretical document is adaptive wavefront correction, integrating a piezoelectric actuator array behind each mirror to adjust the mirror curvature in real-time and compensate for the truncated wavefront.
Su Che added a set of actuator models behind the first virtual mirror.
Sixty-four actuation points, arranged in a honeycomb structure.
The correction algorithm applied the core framework from the optical path design plan unlocked by the system, first using the most basic Zernike polynomials for wavefront decomposition.
Run.
The diffuse halo at the edge of the light spot narrowed by half.
Added to one hundred and twenty-eight actuation points.
The halo almost disappeared.
The diameter reading of the central light spot, 0.048 nanometers.
Standard met.
Su Che locked this set of parameters into the configuration file.
The simplified verification of two mirrors passed, but after connecting twelve mirrors in series, the wavefront distortion of each one will accumulate step by step.
The subsequent integration is the real tough battle.
He saved the simulation data and leaned back against the chair to stretch.
Lin Waner appeared beside him at some point, holding a roll of medical tape in her hand.
"Hand."
Su Che looked down.
There was a red mark on the outside of the second joint of his right index finger, caused by typing; the skin wasn't broken, but calluses had started to form.
Lin Waner tore off a small piece of tape and stuck it on, smoothing down the edges.
"Is sticking this on useful?" Su Che moved his finger.
"It's useless." Lin Waner stuffed the roll of tape into her pocket, "But when you see it, you'll remember it's time to rest."
Su Che looked down at the piece of white tape.
"Reminder function."
"Correct."
Lin Waner left.
On the monitoring wall, only a small blank space remained at the top docking module of the Dry Dock's enclosed final assembly cabin shell.
Five hundred robots were concentrated in that area, the density higher than at any other time.
It was almost capped.
Su Che shifted his gaze away from the space footage and back to the code repository.
The number of code lines for the sub-nanometer optical path design module had just passed four hundred.
The wavefront correction algorithm for the twelve main reflective mirrors had to be written separately for each one.
He set the cursor on the four hundred and first line.
The handheld device in his pocket vibrated.
A message from Academician Sun Qiwen at Jiuquan Launch Base, containing only one line of text.
"The first lens substrate from the Changchun Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics has finished the polishing process, expected to be ready in seven days."
Seven days.
Su Che closed the message and slammed his fingers back onto the keyboard.
Twelve mirrors, twelve sets of wavefront correction, twelve optical path alignment algorithms.
The first one had already passed.
Eleven more to go.