U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) engineer of Taiwanese descent Yen Cheng at the control center of the Trailblazer Mars Exploration Rover, with the Mars 2020 mission (Mars 2020) logo in the rear. (Courtesy of Yen/Central News Agency)
The U.S. “Perseverance” rover landed on Mars, the engineer responsible for controlling the vehicle Yan Zheng from Taiwan. 19, he was interviewed by the Central News Agency to explain how to drive the 1,000-kilogram vehicle on Mars on Earth, and its special shift workflow, but also to respond to how to deal with extraterrestrial Life in case of encounter.
Central News Agency reported, “Perseverance” (Perseverance) launched from Earth last year, after a 7-month, 480 million kilometers journey, 18 on Mars. The next step of this cutting-edge technology rover how to go, all to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) control center in the suburbs of Los Angeles.
Growing up in Taiwan and studying in the United States, Yen, 61, has served at JPL for more than 20 years and has participated in four NASA Mars exploration programs since 2003. He leads the Robot Interfaces and Visualization team, which is responsible for controlling the vehicle.
“Every day for the next three months, when Mars goes dark, our control center goes to work programming commands. As soon as it’s morning on Mars, we’ll pass the written program over and get the car started.” In an interview today, Yim talked about the special shift system of “Mars Time on Earth”.
Mars enters the night, the temperature drops to -80 degrees Celsius, such an extreme environment, the rover’s motor and all the instruments, must spend more time and energy to warm up the operation, so the rover is calculated to carry out the mission only during the day.
Driving this 1000 kg car on Mars, unlike the manipulation of general remote control cars. From Earth to Mars, it will take 203 days by spacecraft, and the signal will take half an hour to go back and forth; it is not a button pressed here on Earth, it will run forward synchronously, but must be arranged in advance to work, to the car advanced devices to perform.
“There is no GPS (Global Positioning System) on Mars.” The softwares designed by Yan and his team use 3D visualization, virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), artificial intelligence (AI) and other technologies to build a live reality of Mars on the ground, and the controllers use the 10 hours when Mars goes dark to arrange the next step for the car.
The Earth’s rotation is 24 hours a week, and a day on Mars is 24 hours and 40 minutes. 18 Trail landed on Mars at 4 p.m. on Mars and 1 p.m. in Los Angeles. With the 40-minute time difference every day, Yan and his colleagues have been pushing back their work hours, “today at 2 p.m., next week at 10 p.m.”.
The Trailblazer’s current mission is to collect evidence that living things once existed on Mars. The reporter asked the question in case the Mars rover encountered extraterrestrial life, NASA operating guidelines have provisions? To this hypothetical question, Yan laughed and said, “Hurry up and take pictures.” NASA code does not have this provision, but if it happens, it is a big event that changes the world view and religious view of mankind.
However, Yan said that the code of practice clearly states that the spacecraft and the Mars Exploration Rover must ensure that no organisms on Earth can be brought to Mars, to avoid the occurrence of the “discovery of life forms on Earth on Mars” oops event, affecting the results of the probe.
As for how long will it take for humans to set foot on Mars? Yan replied that babies born now should be able to see humans land on Mars in their lifetime. He reasoned that today’s technology has the ability to send people to Mars, but it will cost a huge amount of money, a trip of about 2.7 billion U.S. dollars for Trailblazer hundreds of times, in order to allow humans to survive in the extreme environment of Mars.
The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Taiwanese-born engineer Yan Zheng and his team will control the Mars Exploration Vehicle “Perseverance” (Perseverance) at the control center in Pasadena, California, in the coming March. (Courtesy of Yen/Central News Agency)
Since 2003, Yan has been involved in four Mars explorations, from the beginning, when he discovered that Mars once had water and found an environment where life could survive, to now, when he is digging for evidence of life and preparing to send it back to Earth. He said that each step is the result of the accumulated efforts of countless people working together over the past few decades.
He encouraged the young people in Taiwan who want to devote themselves to aerospace science and technology to not only be afraid of difficulties and failure like the name of the “Perseverance”, but more importantly, to “grasp the impulse in life”.
He was teaching at the University of Minnesota when he saw the image of a small vehicle on Mars and thought to himself, “This is so cool, if I don’t do this, I will have regrets in my life. .
Yan compared his feelings to those of a student who saw a girl he liked and went after her even though he was bleeding, “There are always impulses in life that are worth cherishing. He originally specialized in designing simulation systems for jeeps and tanks, but was so fascinated by the images of Mars rovers that he had the opportunity to meet the people involved in Rome, Italy, in 1998, and was introduced to NASA.
After losing both Parents at a young age and growing up in a nursery, Yen worked hard to get into Jianguo High School and Tsinghua University, and then studied in the United States and got his PhD in applied mathematics and mechanics from the University of Iowa. The most important thing in life is to find the direction of his life. For him, it was the impulse to “try now and regret later”.
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