The latest addition To the Chinese space station Tiangong is Chatbot AI with specialist knowledge in the field of navigation and tactical planning. Named Wukong AI – after the heroine Legend “Monkey King” In the Chinese mythology, Sun Wukong-Chatbot was introduced at the space station in mid-July and has already completed his first mission: supporting three taiconauts during cosmic combustion.
Information about WUKong AI is circumscribed. The Chinese authorities reported that they developed it from the national AI Open Source model; According to Xinhua, the State Chinese Press Agency, engineers designed it to meet the crew requirements of space missions and focused their knowledge base on the air flight.
“This system can provide quick and effective support for information for complex operations and error service by crew members, improvement of work efficiency, psychological support in orbit and coordination between space teams and ground”, Zou Pengfei with Taikonaut Training Center, said Xinhua.
Technicians combined artificial intelligence with Tiangong on July 15. It began to provide support a month later, for the first time the Chinese space station used a gigantic language model (LLM) during inorbit missions. Wukong AI helped the crew in a mission with a length of six and a half hours, which included taikonauts installation of protective devices in the space of the spatial space during a cosmic walk and routine control of the station.
Taikonauts say that their novel assistant “offers very comprehensive content”. Chinese media describe Wukong AI as a classic system of questions and answers divided into two modules: one installed at the station and one on Earth. The ground module conducts an in -depth analysis, while the module accompanying the crew solves direct challenges. The combination of these two creates an advanced assistant capable of adapting to each mission.
Wukong is neither the first AI system in space or the first at the station. The international space station already has Astrobee, a robot that helps astronauts in routine tasks, and Cimon, a conversational psychological support system. The special AI is that he combines the functions of an bright assistant – like those used on Earth – with complete focus on space navigation.
The Tiangong station is the core of the Chinese consolidation strategy of its position as space in the next 30 years. The station currently serves as a microgravity laboratory for experiments that would be impossible on Earth. In the future, China plans to develop it and turn it into an indirect logistics and training platform between the moon and the earth’s surface.
And the reason for the name AI? Sun Wukong is a mythical person who appears in a classic novel West journey. In China, it symbolizes cunning, adaptability, endurance and pursuit of knowledge.
This story originally appeared Wired in Spanish and was translated from Spanish.