China’s First Mission to Mars Seems to Be Struggling

China’s Zhurong rover went into hibernation mode in May 2022 to keep away from the cruel winter season on Mars, however communication points, each with the rover and orbiter, recommend one thing’s now very incorrect with the mission.

The six-wheeled Martian rover was scheduled to get up in late December, however it hasn’t been heard from since getting into into its scheduled hibernation mode, unnamed sources told the South China Morning Post, as first reported by SpaceNews.

Zhurong landed on Mars on May 14, 2021 as China’s first Martian mission. The rover was despatched to Mars with the Tianwen-1 orbiter, which relays knowledge between the rover and floor controllers on Earth. About a yr after roaming and investigating the Red Planet, the rover entered hibernation—a sort of low energy protected mode—in anticipation of the Martian winter, when temperatures attain round -4 levels Fahrenheit (-20 levels Celsius) in the course of the day and -148 F (-100 C) at evening. The winter season on Mars additionally consists of sand and dirt storms, which block the rover’s photo voltaic panels and stop it from gathering daylight to generate energy. For its personal safety, Zhurong hunkered down in a dormant state for these chilly, dusty months on Mars.

By late December, which marks the start of Martian spring, the rover was purported to autonomously resume its actions. However, the China National Space Administration has but to ship out any updates concerning the rover, in what’s an ominous signal. The rover’s photo voltaic panels may very well be lined by mud, decreasing its capability to generate energy and stopping it from turning again on, in accordance with the SCMP’s sources. It’s value noting that NASA’s Curiosity and Perseverance rovers are capable of energy by means of Mars’s winter season utilizing a radioisotope power system.

And it could not simply be the rover that’s in hassle. The mission’s Tianwen-1 orbiter has additionally reportedly gone silent. Scott Tilley, professor at the Florida Institute of Technology, noted on Twitter that the radio indicators between the bottom station and Tianwen-1 point out that mission controllers could have stopped attempting to speak with the orbiter after failing to realize contact. This is unlucky, as China deliberate to perform aerobraking tests in 2023 with Tianwen-1 in anticipation of a future Mars pattern return mission.

It’s doable that the issue with the orbiter is expounded to the issue with Zhurong, however we’ll have to attend for China to lastly say one thing official on the matter. In the occasion we don’t hear again from the rover and its orbital companion, China’s mission to Mars will nonetheless be deemed a hit, because it was initially designed to final for 3 months on the Red Planet however managed to stay on for over a yr.

More: China’s Zhurong Rover Captures Remarkable Sights and Sounds on Mars