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China’s first interplanetary mission celebrated its second anniversary in orbit around Mars on Feb. 10, but there has been no update on the status of the mission’s rover.
The Zhurong rover of the Tianwen 1 mission entered hibernation in May 2022 due to the decrease in solar energy available to the spacecraft during the winter in the northern hemisphere of Mars.
Zhurong was expected to wake up in December, around the time of the vernal equinox, but China and its space authorities have kept quiet about it. rover case.
Related: Will China’s Zhurong Mars rover wake up from its troubling slumber?
Chinese state media marked (Opens in a new tab) We celebrate the second anniversary with short articles highlighting the achievements of the Tianwen 1 Mars orbiter with only brief mentions from Zhurong. No new photos from orbit have been released.
Zhurong was expected to wake up independently when two conditions were met. These are major components that reach temperatures above minus 5 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 15 degrees Celsius) and generate power greater than 140 watts. It is expected that both conditions will be reached in December.
The rover does not carry an isotope heating unit, like other rovers including China’s Yutu lunar explorers, but instead has a pair of “windows” that allow a chemical called n-undecane to store heat energy. The material absorbs heat and melts during the day, and hardens and releases heat at night, according (Opens in a new tab) For Chinese state media.
Dust storms in Utopia Planitia may have affected the rover’s ability to generate heat and light. This likely explains Zhurong’s silence, and may leave hope that the rover will be reactivated in warmer conditions or when Martian winds clean out its solar arrays.
Tianwen 1, despite the apparent problem with Zhurong still running, was a great success. The mission is China’s first independent interplanetary expedition, and made the country only the second after the United States to successfully land and operate a rover on Mars.
Both the Tianwen 1 and Zhurong probes have them complete they Primary missions And won International awards. Updates were also provided earlier on Yutu lunar rover suffer The locomotive failed in early 2014. However, China is still silent about Zhurong’s fate.
Tianwen 1 was one of three missions to reach Mars in February 2021, along with NASA perseverance Rover and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Hope is in orbit.
The nuclear-powered Perseverance landed on Feb. 18, and the mission has been active ever since. It has a regularly updated and customized NASA task page (Opens in a new tab).
United Arab Emirates announce (Opens in a new tab) On the second anniversary of Hope’s orbital insertion, the spacecraft will adjust its orbit to closely study Mars’ small moon Deimos.
China plans to launch a Mars sample return mission called Tianwen 3 As soon as 2028.
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