Concern is growing that China's Zhurong Mars rover may never wake up from its winter hibernation on the Red Planet.

As the South China Morning Post(Opens in a new window) reports, Zhurong was expected to awake from its hibernation period on Dec. 26 last year, but that never happened. Since then, scientists at the China National Space Administration (CNSA) have been unable to make contact.

The rover is designed to wake up automatically when its power level achieves 140 watts and the temperature of key components is at least 15 degrees Celsius (5 degrees Fahrenheit). The suspicion among scientists is that Mars' sandstorms have coated Zhurong's solar panels to such an extent that it can no longer generate enough power to get going again.

In an attempt to figure out what's going on, the CNSA is planning to fly the Tianwen-1 probe, which is already orbiting Mars, over the area to capture some footage of the rover. The imagery could explain why Zhurong continues to hibernate, but viewing the images may prove problematic. Apparently downloading data captured by the probe's two cameras isn't working at the moment.

Zhurong successfully landed on the Red Planet back in May 2021 and managed to complete all its planned exploration tasks by August. Since then, the rover has been driving towards the southern part of the Utopia Planitia—the largest recognized impact basin on Mars. By May 6, 2022, Zhurong had traveled a distance of 1,921 meters (6,302 feet).