But Zhurong has autonomous systems designed to cope with the solar conjunction and winter on Mars.Īccording to Chen, the rover has traveled more than 1,000 meters since it landed on Mars at the southern part of Utopia Planitia in May 2021. When we designed it, we took all possible situations into account,' said Jin.Ĭhen Baichao, the chief designer of Zhurong from CAST, said it would be very difficult to keep a spacecraft in a normal condition for such a long time without ground control.
'We cared about Zhurong, but we have full confidence in it. The design team cared about Zhurong just like people care about a child who has gone away to summer camp, said Jin Shengyi, the deputy chief designer for teleoperation subsystem of Zhurong from the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST). China's first Mars rover Zhurong, which lost contact with Earth for about a month during the solar conjunction, has sent back a signal from a distance of 400 million km stating that it is in a normal condition.ĭuring the solar conjunction, when Mars and Earth move to either side of the Sun and the three are almost perfectly aligned, the solar electromagnetic radiation increases, disrupting and even jamming the communications between the Mars probes and Earth.
