China finally admits its hibernating Mars rover may never wake up

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The Zhurong Mars rover never woke up from a planned hibernation, and the head of the mission team has now revealed why.

After months of silence, Chinese government officials have finally revealed the fate of the nation's robotic Mars explorer, which stopped moving nearly a year ago.

This scenario has long been considered the most likely reason that Zhurong never woke up from the hibernation it entered in May 2022. The rover was expected to wake again in December 2022 as winter in the Martian northern hemisphere drew to a close and sunlight became more abundant, but the rover remained quiet. In March, NASA images of the Red Planet showed the rover in the same position where it had entered its hibernation period, nearly one year earlier.

 

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