China's Jade Rabbit Rover is gearing up for D-Day. In just over a week, mission scientists will find out whether the rover survived the long lunar night after experiencing technical difficulties last week.
"Chinese people have been worried about the Jade Rabbit," wrote a microblogger with the user name Yang Huiyan, according to Fox News. "Hope the New Year will bring good luck to him."
The Jade Rabbit is China's first lunar rover, and it started experiencing mechanical problems last week. While the six-wheeled Yutu vehicle only began operating last month after making the first soft landing on the moon by a space probe in the last 37 years, it soon ran into issues. There was an abnormality in its control mechanism, and other sources reported that the mechanical problems are probably related to the solar-powered probe's process for shutting down for the lunar night, which lasts more than two weeks, according to SciTech.
Currently, the rover's fate will only be determined at the end of the lunar night. During this time, the rover can't generate energy from its solar panels and instead relies on a radioactive power source in order to keep its delicate sensors and other equipment intact. The rover was actually designed to roam the lunar surface for three months while surveying for natural resources and sending back data, according to Fox News. Whether this mission will actually be able to be completed, though, remains to be seen.
