It is unknown what the fate of Zhurong is. Maybe it broke down, or maybe the Chinese space agency (CNSA) just stopped sending news of its robot. He had arrived there in May 2021 aboard the Tianwen-1 probe – which made China the second country, after the United States, to have successfully landed on Mars. The six-wheeled robot had left its platform on May 22, 2021 and returned several images in the months that followed. It went into hibernation as planned in May 2022, to save energy during the Martian winter, and it was supposed to be “awakened” in December. Since then, no information has been provided by the CNSA.
According to the picture taken by Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) on February 7, Zhurong has not moved since the previous photo, taken on September 8.
If it is indeed a breakdown, it will not be the first “technical incident” observed by MRO. It is to this probe that we owe a photo of a long black spot on the Martian soil, testifying to the crash of the European probe Schiaparelli in 2016.
Photo: the robot is the small green circle in the center. NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
