Images from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show that China’s Zhurong rover remains stationary on the Red Planet, while China remains silent on the status of the spacecraft. The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) captured the rover’s image on March 11, 2022, a second on September 8, 2022, and finally on February 7, 2023. The images were released in February 2023. 21 HiRISE Operations Centers

The footage shows the solar-powered Zhurong, which landed in May 2021, has not moved since at least September 2022. It entered a planned hibernation state in May 2022 to survive the low levels of solar radiation during the winter in the Utopia Planitia region of Mars.

Zhurong was expected to resume autonomous operations during the Northern Hemisphere’s vernal equinox around December, when temperatures and light levels reached levels at which the rover’s batteries and solar panels could produce sufficient electricity.

However, the Chinese space authority did not provide an update on the rover’s status. The South China Morning Post reported on January 7, citing anonymous sources, that the mission team has yet to receive a signal from Zhurong.

HiRISE imaging progress shows that Zhurong may have deposited a coating of Martian dust on its surface. This could affect the performance of both solar cells and a pair of “windows” that allow a chemical called n-undecane to store heat energy during the day and release it at night.

Zhurong does not have the radioisotope heater used by local Yutu rovers, but instead uses systems containing n-undecane for heating and an airgel coating for insulation.

In 2005, NASA’s Spirit rover accidentally encountered a dust demon that was cleaning the spacecraft’s solar panels and boosting power production. Such phenomena, combined with rising levels of solar radiation as summer approaches in the Northern Hemisphere, mean there is still hope for Zhurong to reactivate. MRO/HiRISE previously displayed Zhurong on the surface, showing the landing site and tracks that matched the routes on the China Zhurong traffic maps.

Zhurong is part of the successful Tianwen-1 mission, launched in July 2020 as China’s first independent interplanetary expedition. The mission orbited the Tianwen-1 spacecraft around Mars and then, after an imaging campaign and assessment of the target landing site, saw Zhurong land on Utopia Planitia.

With Tianwen-1, China successfully placed a spacecraft into Mars orbit, joining the United States, the Soviet Union/Russia, the European Space Agency, India and the United Arab Emirates. The Zhurong rover made China the second country on the Red Planet to successfully use rover. Zhurong’s first mission was three Earth months, but he worked a little over an Earth year on the Martian surface before going into hibernation. It went at least 1,921 meters south of the landing site. He achieved basic science goals and sought geomorphological targets such as mud volcanoes during his extended mission.

Meanwhile, the Tianwen-1 orbiter, which entered Mars orbit on February 10 two years ago, was also performing well as of January 10, meeting its primary science goals, according to the Shanghai Academy of Space Technology (SAST). Chinese state media published articles to celebrate the anniversary of the launch, but did not touch on Zhurong’s current condition. Tianwen-1 is expected to conduct aerobraking tests in preparation for an exemplary return mission to Mars, which could potentially be launched later this decade.