From late September to late October last year, the Mars orbiter and Zhurong suspended their explorations and relied on their own autonomous systems to survive their first solar outage, during which time solar electromagnetic radiation increased and disrupted communication between the probe and Earth.
In November 2021, Zhurong and the European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft performed an in-orbit relay communication test.
In May this year, using data gathered by Zhurong on the landing site, Chinese scientists found new evidence suggesting the presence of liquid water activity and hydrated minerals on the red planet.
By May 5, 2022, the Tianwen-1 orbiter had been operating for 651 days at a distance of 240 million km from Earth. Zhurong had been working for 347 Martian days and traveled 1,921 meters. The orbiter and rover, operating normally, had obtained approximately 940 gigabytes of data.
