Original title: 16 years of sharpening a sword, defeating the strong teams in Europe and America! Tsinghua won the championship!
The International Space Exploration Trajectory Optimization Competition is the highest level international competition in the field of space mission design. It aims to invite the world’s outstanding aerospace dynamics experts and mathematicians to challenge the “near-impossible” space exploration complex mission optimization design problem.
The number of participating teams in this competition is the largest ever. The theme of the competition is the exploration and utilization of space resources. The 2nd-6th places in the competition are all strong teams from Europe and America. The winning teams in previous editions include NASA and ESA. And other world-renowned space agencies. The victory of the Tsinghua team has demonstrated China’s strength in the field of space mission optimization design to the world! Win glory for the country, fight it! “We are struggling, this time we must win the championship and win glory for the country!” Baoyin said firmly.
▾ Competition ranking ▾
The Global Trajectory Optimisation Competition (GTOC) is a high-level, professional and international competition initiated by ESA in 2005. The theme of this competition is the exploration and utilization of space resources. All participating teams are required to design the orbits of the combined spacecraft, detect and capture as many asteroids in the solar system as possible, and build ring-shaped space power stations, that is, to build the famous “Dyson“Circle” in order to improve the quality of power stations and obtain maximum resource utilization efficiency. The competition questions involve asteroid detection and defense, space station construction and other popular fields and cutting-edge technologies, which have broad engineering application prospects.
2021 Contest Topic: Schematic Diagram of Building a Space Power Station
The competition system can be described as very “exciting”. The competition lasts for nearly a month. Teams from different countries must propose the best construction plan within their abilities within this time period.
However! It’s not the final moment. Within this month, each team can continuously update and submit new plans. “Opponents” can see each other’s progress and try to constantly break through the new limits and records of themselves and the other party. Propose better indicators.
The Tsinghua representative team is fully prepared. A total of 10 team members were sent to participate this time, including 8 masters and doctors from the Aviation Academy and 2 alumni of the Aviation Academy.
For nearly a month, the team members spent sleep and food every day, almost eating and lodging in the laboratory, accompanied by the sun, the moon and the stars.
Not long after the game started, the Tsinghua team quickly came up with the first version of the indicator plan, but before everyone could breathe a sigh of relief, another team submitted a plan that immediately refreshed the indicator.
“This is the charm of track competition! Keep our own rhythm, don’t be afraid! Believe everyone!” Team member Li Haiyang encouraged everyone.
“Ten Thousand Meters Long Run”, solid step by step!
“This race is like a’ten thousand-meter long run’. Every step is very solid. At the same time, it is necessary to maintain the advantage to the end to prevent the’last lap’ from being overtaken.” Baoyin said.
“A year ago, it was the first time I participated in a domestic track competition. Because of my lack of experience with my teammates, I was overtaken on the last day and only won second place. I felt very sorry at that time! I have continued to design the track in the past year. The research on combinatorial optimization problems in the field has greatly improved the ability, so I have great expectations for this competition.” Team member Zhang Nan said.
After adjusting their thinking, the members of the Tsinghua team set off again:
“After hearing the good news of the championship, the excitement is beyond words! From the first contact with the track optimization competition in 2017, I have fallen in love with the unique charm of this competition. It is an exploration of the unknown. rightbeautifulPursue. Winning the championship this time benefited from the solid foundation of the research team and the advantages of our unity and cooperation. It will also be an important experience for my future scientific research work. Thank the team teachers for their training and support, and sincerely wish the students in the laboratory can achieve the best solutions in their future lives! “Team member Wudi said.
A “sword” that has been sharpened for 16 years!
Before winning the championship, Tsinghua’s “sword” has actually been worn for 16 years.
As early as 2005, Baoyin led his team to participate in the first competition and was the only Asian team at that time. More than ten years ago, the domestic team had a relatively small foundation in the field of track design, and the results were mediocre. In order to get rid of China’s backwardness in this field and improve the optimization level of our team’s space mission, Professor Baoyin initiated the first National Space Orbit Design Competition in 2009.
After more than ten years of training and competition, the overall level of the Chinese team has continued to improve. At present, many domestic colleges and universities have participated in GTOC and achieved continuous success. The Tsinghua team won the championship of this highest international orbit design event. It is a major achievement of my country’s scientific research and personnel training. It has consolidated my country’s leading position in international aerospace events and embodies the steady improvement of China’s aerospace science and technology.
The previous topics of the competition and their solutions have become a treasure trove of the aerospace science and technology community, and they will still be further studied and discovered as typical cases for many years after the competition. For example, in 2005, the theme of the first edition was “Save the Earth”, which aimed to explore how humans should use space forces to hit the asteroid in the face of the future crisis of an asteroid hitting the earth to make it deviate from its path to the earth. Avoid the crisis of extinction; to this day, this issue is still an important goal for mankind to continue to improve space power. The sixth competition in 2012 was entitled “Global mapping of Galilean moons”. NASA’s Jupiter exploration program “Quick Sail” planned to launch in 2023 directly adopted this competition. Similar task objectives.
In addition, the topics of previous competitions also include space debris cleanup, continuous asteroid detection and sampling and return, and the construction of space-based observation networks. It is foreseeable that in the near future, these aerospace design results and related actual missions will be used in human spaceflight. A strong and colorful stroke left in history.
“The hard work of 4 weeks and 28 days, 80 pages of meeting records, and uncountable codes and data have all witnessed our efforts! Thank you teachers for letting us sprint to do what we want to do, and thank all the team members for their hard work. The seeds that had been buried for 16 years took root and sprouted, and we finally won the coveted championship!” Captain Zhang Zhong said excitedly.
“Several main team members were trained all the way from the undergraduate degree of Tsinghua University. They have a solid foundation and strong professional ability. The most important thing is the spirit of unity and cooperation and the mission of Tsinghua people. I am proud of everyone!” Bao Yin said. “Others can, and so can the Chinese. Others are champions, and we can do it too!”
The sea of stars, the future continues, and move forward bravely!