RIP Jade Rabbit: China's lunar rover officially dead

Mechanical problems affecting Yutu, China's first lunar rover, cannot be fixed and the spacecraft will not be restored, according to a short statement on Chinese news site ecns.

Users of Chinese microblogging network Weibohave reportedly been posting missives to Yutu, also known as Jade Rabbit, ever since the abnormalities with the rover first came to light a couple of weeks ago. The blessings have turned to messages of mourning, now it has been confirmed there is no way to bring the rover back from the dead.

By the time the problems with Jade Rabbit were discovered, it had already entered one of the long hibernation periods it has to observe in order to operate only during the lunar day, which lasts several weeks. Scientists had prepared a fix for the rover, but had to wait until it woke from its slumber to see if it would work.

Sadly there was no hope for poor Yutu, which landed on the Moon on 14 December on a three-month-long mission dedicated to analysing soil samples.

The rover was named Jade Rabbit by popular vote in China and relates to an ancient, famous Chinese myth about a rabbit living on the Moon. The myth is referred to in a poem called "The Old Dust" by Chinese poet Li Bai, which says:

"The rabbit in the Moon pounds the medicine in vain; Fu-sang, the tree or immortality, has crumbled to kindling wood."

Rather poignantly Fu-Sang is a mythological mulberry tree of life which, just like Yutu, fell tragically short of its life expectancy.

China has not said exactly what has caused Jade Rabbit's early demise, but initially the "complicated lunar surface environment" was blamed. According to New Scientist, this is likely to mean "abrasive lunar dust", which has previously caused Moon buggies to overheat and wore through the spacesuits of Apollo astronauts.

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RIP Jade Rabbit: China's lunar rover officially dead