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Mars rover "Zhurong" near its landing platform, recorded by a remote-controlled camera
Photo: CNSA / ZUMA Wire / IMAGO
The fate of China's first Mars rover "Zhurong" is uncertain.
A month after the vehicle was expected to wake up from its hibernation, it has lost all sign of life.
However, experts do not want to give up hope that the rover will start 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, speaking of an attempt to "undermine" progress in China's space program.
Possibly sand on the awnings
The rover had been put into hibernation in May 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 didn't come out of its dormant state," David Flannery of Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, told Nature magazine.
There is a long history of solar powered landers and rovers on Mars that ran out of power.
The astrobiologist works in the team of the American Mars rover »Perseverance«.
It was only in December that the USA gave up 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 supplying enough power - probably because of too much dust on the solar modules.
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.
However, 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 initially planned.
ani/dpa