China’s Lunar Rover Comes Back To Life

China’s Yutu (Jade Rabbit) 'Made In China' Robot 'Chang'e-3' To Land On Moon has managed to come out of its dormant state successfully after it had suffered a malfunction during a scheduled shutdown procedure. Normally, during the 14 days of the lunar night, systems aboard the Jade Rabbit rover have to be systematically shutdown to avoid any damage caused by the extreme cold temperatures of the moon when it is devoid of sunlight. In January the rover was scheduled to carry out this procedure but for some reason its solar panels did not close properly leaving crucial electronics exposed to very low temperatures. Since the chances of its survival were very bleak, China News Service published a report on its website titled “Loss of Lunar Rover” stating the fact that the rover had not came out of its dormant state successfully on the scheduled date.


Today however the Xinhua news agency reported that the rover has managed to come out of the dormant stage and was able to receive signals. Radio amateurs have also said that they are able to pick up the downlink transmissions from the rover on Wednesday night. Spokesperson for the lunar mission Mr. Pei Zhaoyu informed the press that the rover was alive and there is a chance to save it. While the experts have not been able to find out the cause of the malfunction they speculate that the culprit behind the mechanical malfunction was a build-up of lunar dust on the rover. The news of Jade Rabbit’s apparent demise and revival has managed to spark a lot of discussions on China’s micro-blogging website Sina Weibo with the rover being the most searched term of the day.

Source: #-Link-Snipped-# via China's Jade Rabbit lunar rover 'could be saved' - BBC News