Actually, China’s Mars rover should have woken up from its planned hibernation long ago, but there is still no trace of it. An insider describes China’s communication on the matter as “strange”. Will “Zhurong” be retired forever?
China’s first Mars rover “Zhurong” should have woken up from hibernation a month ago. But so far there has been no sign of life from him and there is growing concern that his fate is already sealed. However, experts do not want to give up hope that the rover, named after the Chinese god of fire, will start up again.
China’s space agency did not comment on the status. State media described foreign reports that “Zhurong” might have a problem as “hyped up”. Political motives were implied, with talk of an attempt to “undermine” progress in China’s space program.
The rover had been put into hibernation in May 2022 for the cold, dusty winter on the red planet. Now there is concern that “Zhurong” may not have survived the harsh sandstorms because too much sand may have settled on its sun sails. The rover was supposed to wake up automatically when its power level reaches more than 140 watts and the battery temperature rises above minus 15 degrees Celsius.
“It wouldn’t be surprising if the rover doesn’t come out of its sleep mode because it’s solar-powered, and there’s a long history of solar-powered landers and rovers on Mars that have run out of power,” said David Flannery of the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, to the magazine “Nature”. The astrobiologist works in the team of the American Mars rover “Perseverance”.
Other experts remain optimistic that temperatures are rising and that the solar cells could still absorb enough sunshine. “It’s too early to say anything is wrong,” said Baptiste Chide, a research scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, who is also a collaborator on Perseverance. The fact that China’s space program does not express itself “is strange,” quoted “Nature” from a Chinese employee in the “Zhurong” team, who did not want to be named.
“Zhurong” landed in the Utopia Planitia region in May 2021. With the flight, China is only the second spacefaring nation after the United States to have successfully deployed a reconnaissance vehicle on the Red Planet.
The mission is already considered a success because all planned projects have been carried out. The rover drove almost two kilometers over the surface of Mars, collected a lot of scientific knowledge, found traces of former water deposits and was in operation three months longer than planned.
In December, the United States shut down the solar-powered Mars lander Insight after four years after contact could no longer be made. The US space agency NASA had come to the conclusion that the batteries were no longer delivering enough power – probably because of too much dust on the solar modules.
