Taikonauts aboard China’s Tiangong space station used an AI model to prepare for a spacewalk.
Chinese state media reports state the model arrived on the space station in mid-July and is based on an unidentified “homegrown open-source AI model.” Chinese company iFlytek, which makes open source AI models, offers a product named “Wukong” – a handle it shares with the “Wukong AI” used aboard Tiangong.
State media didn’t describe the hardware used to run Wukong AI, but we do know that China launched a cloud that uses homegrown Loongson CPUs to its space station last year.
Whatever the model’s provenance and operating environment, its developers tailored it for professional use and it apparently “features a knowledge base centered on aerospace flight standards.”
Wukong AI apparently works on-prem (aboard Tiangong) and on Earth and offers a chat interface. The AI’s terrestrial operations conduct deep analysis, and the orbital iteration apparently solves “critical and complex challenges.”
Crew aboard the space station reportedly used the AI model “to assist with preparations for extravehicular activities that took place on Friday,” including by asking it to produce a work schedule before their spacewalk. “The AI system quickly replied with relevant links and guidance.”
The spacewalk was significant for another reason – the twentieth use of a single spacesuit. Eleven taikonauts have worn the suit, which Chinese engineers designed to last at least 15 spacewalks. These five extra spacewalks made it the first Chinese space suit to enter extended use.
It may not be needed for much longer, as China shipped two new suits to Tiangong on the same mission that carried Wukong AI, and plans to deploy them on future missions.
The new suits are said to have a longer lifespan, be safer and more reliable, and make life easier for taikonauts as they work outside the space station on tasks like construction. China plans to add more modules to Tiangong, so suits that make that effort more efficient are obviously useful.
Back to AI: This is not the first AI model in space: HPE and Booz Allen last year deployed an LLM to the International Space Station. The model’s capabilities included processing natural language queries to retrieve information from manuals and documents. ®