China's Zhurong Mars Rover may be oversleeping on the job.
NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter recently confirmed that China's Zhurong rover has been stationary for months since its hibernation in May 2022, during the Martian winter.
China's space agency recently celebrated the second anniversary of its first interplanetary mission in Mars' orbit, but it didn't give an update about Zhurong, per Space.com.
NASA's Findings On Zhurong's Possible Issues
NASA recently published pictures from its Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter that gives people a clearer sense of what happened to China's Zhurong Mars rover.
The pictures, which the HiRRISE Operations Center published on Feb. 21, revealed that Zhurong has not awakened from its hibernation since it entered it in May 2022, per Space News. Based on the pictures, Zhurong is currently within the Utopia Planitia region, a place Chinese astronomers like Zongcheng Ling and their team thought to be the "origination area" of dust storms and the main route of the Artic dust storm sequences in their study.
The Rover should have woken up from its slumber in December 2022, around the time of the Martian Spring equinox in the northern hemisphere. During this period, temperatures and light levels reach a point that allows Zhurong's battery and solar arrays to generate sufficient electrical power to wake it up.
However, there may be some unseen factors from space at play. The progression of the HiRISE images suggests that Zhurong may have accumulated a covering of Martian dust on its surface - a fact not unheard of on Mars.
You may remember that NASA's Mars InSight Lander may have shut down by now due to the layers of dust it accumulated on its solar panels. It may have even transmitted its final image in late December as it neared the end of its lifespan.
Combine that fact with the knowledge that Utopia Panitia is the origination point of Mars' dust storms, and Zhurong had likely accumulated layers of Martian dust preventing it from waking up from its hibernation.
Whether Zhurong can operate using reduced power levels is still unclear. It was supposed to wake when its key components reached a temperature greater than five degrees Fahrenheit and energy generation greater than 140 watts. Though it doesn't carry a radioisotope heart unit like other rovers, Zhurong has a pair of n-undecane windows to store heat energy.
China's Silence on Zhurong
Despite celebrating the second anniversary of its first interplanetary mission in Mars' orbit, China's National Space Administration (CNSA) mentioned that its Tianwen 1 spacecraft was "in good condition" and would continue to perform multiple tasks related to Mars, per Chinese state media Xinhua.
However, it only made passing remarks about its Zhurong Mars rover, with the space agency recounting its landing on Mars and its communications with its Tianwen 1 spacecraft for nearly six months.
This silence isn't one of ignorance on CNSA's part. An anonymous source told the South China Morning Post that Zhurong has been completely quiet since entering hibernation, but CNSA continued ta trend of secrecy over its missions, choosing to remain silent about Zhurong's true status, per Gizmodo.
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