"玉兔"命運牽動中國人心.

　　China’s Jade Rabbit springs back to life

　　China’s Jade Rabbit Moon rover appeared to die in its sleep on Wednesday night only to wake again at dawn, as state media struggled to communicate the latest twist in the high-profile exploration project.

　　周三晚間，中國的玉兔月球探測車似乎已在睡眠狀態(tài)下死去，卻不料在拂曉時分再次蘇醒。官方媒體正費力地跟蹤報道令人矚目的中國探月項目的最新轉(zhuǎn)折。

　　Just hours after the China News Service reported that the Jade Rabbit’s functions “could not be fully restored”, the official Xinhua news agency said that the robot was “awake” and communicating. “The rover stands a chance of being saved as it is still alive,” a spokesman for the project told Xinhua.

　　中國新聞社曾報道稱，玉兔的功能“無法完全恢復(fù)”，但幾個小時后，官方的新華社表示，這臺探月車“蘇醒”，并恢復(fù)到信號接收狀態(tài)?！八鸫a還活著，就有救過來的可能性，”探月項目發(fā)言人對新華社記者說。

　　The Jade Rabbit later issued its first Weibo post in almost two weeks, asking “Hi, is anybody out there?”

　　稍后，玉兔在新浪微博發(fā)出近兩周來的首條博文：“Hi，有人在嗎?”

　　A spokesman for China’s State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Dence could not be reached for comment on the fate of a programme that the Beijing leadership has invested some of its own credibility in.

　　記者無法聯(lián)系上中國國家國防科技工業(yè)局(State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Dence)的發(fā)言人就這個探月項目的命運置評。中國領(lǐng)導(dǎo)層將自己的一部分信譽押在了這個項目上。

　　The country’s state-controlled media had initially prepared the public, which has been following the Jade Rabbit’s adventures since it landed in December with genuine enthusiasm, for the rover’s possible demise at the end of January by giving it its own voice in an unusual report.

　　月兔在12月登陸月球后，中國公眾熱切關(guān)注著這臺探月車的探測經(jīng)歷。1月下旬，中國官方媒體曾在一篇不尋常的報道中以第一人稱透露月兔可能死去，從而讓公眾做好思想準(zhǔn)備。

　　On January 27, a mechanical fault appeared to prevent the Jade Rabbit from fully covering up its monitoring and communications equipment on the eve of a 14-day “l(fā)unar night”, when the solar-powered rover had to hibernate because the moon is in the earth’s shadow.

　　1月27日，一個機械故障似乎阻止玉兔在14天的“月夜”來臨之前完全遮蓋其監(jiān)視和通信設(shè)備。月夜期間，由于月亮處在地球的陰影下，太陽能供電的探月車不得不進(jìn)入休眠狀態(tài)。

　　“Although I should have gone to bed this morning, my masters discovered something abnormal with my mechanical control system,” Xinhua quoted the rover as saying halfway through its three-month mission. “I might not survive this lunar night.” The Jade Rabbit’s diary report came on the same weekend that NASA’s Opportunity rover entered its 11th year of operations on Mars.“

　　本來我也應(yīng)該今早開始睡覺，但入睡前，師父們發(fā)現(xiàn)我的機構(gòu)控制出現(xiàn)異常，”新華社援引這臺探月車的話表示?！拔抑溃锌赡馨静贿^這個月夜了。”三個月的探月任務(wù)僅執(zhí)行到一半的玉兔報告這個消息之際，美國宇航局(NASA)的“機遇號”(Opportunity)在火星上的作業(yè)進(jìn)入第11年。

　　When the fortnight-long lunar day dawned earlier this week, there was only radio silence from Xinhua and other state media outlets – until the bri and contradictory reports that came out overnight on Wednesday and Jade Rabbit’s subsequent Weibo post.

　　當(dāng)14天的月夜在本周早些時候結(jié)束、光照恢復(fù)后，新華社和其它官方媒體均保持了靜默——直到周三夜間才發(fā)布簡短和相互矛盾的報道，月兔的博文隨后出現(xiàn)。

　　“It is hard to say whether the Jade Rabbit is dead or alive because we don’t know exactly what the glitch is,” said Jiao Weixin, professor at Peking University’s School of Earth and Space Science. “In the old days there wouldn’t have been any report until they were sure it was absolutely dead.”“

　　很難說玉兔是死了還是活著，因為我們不知道故障究竟發(fā)生在哪里，”北京大學(xué)(Peking University)地球與空間科學(xué)學(xué)院(School of Earth and Space Science)教授焦維新表示?！耙窃谶^去，在他們確信它絕對死亡之前，是不會有任何報道的。”

　　The rover was launched with full media fanfare on December 1 and dominated the domestic news agenda. Blanket coverage of its two-week journey to the moon was used to downplay the regional crisis sparked just a few days earlier by China’s declaration of an Air Dence Identification Zone over the East China Sea.

　　月兔探月車于12月1日發(fā)射升空，媒體大張旗鼓地予以報道，這個項目的進(jìn)展主導(dǎo)了國內(nèi)新聞日程。在玉兔前往月球的兩周行程中，對這件事鋪天蓋地的報道被用于沖淡早幾天中國在東海劃設(shè)防空識別區(qū)所引發(fā)的區(qū)域危機。

　　The Jade Rabbit’s successful lunar landing on December 14 was hailed as a national triumph, and President Xi Jinping congratulated the project’s scientists and engineers in person. It was the first successful landing on the Moon in almost 40 years and made China only the third nation to engineer a “soft landing” on the surface, after the US and former Soviet Union, and will soften the blow for many if the Jade Rabbit does not complete its mission as planned.

　　玉兔在12月14日成功登月被譽為一個民族勝利，中國國家主席習(xí)近平親臨項目指揮部祝賀科學(xué)家和工程技術(shù)人員。這是近40年來首次成功登陸月球，使中國成為繼美國和前蘇聯(lián)之后，第三個實現(xiàn)月球表面“軟著陸”的國家;如果玉兔沒有按計劃完成使命，這一點將可緩解許多人所受到的打擊。

　　“No matter what the future may hold, you cannot say the Jade Rabbit is a failure,” said Fu Song, an aerospace professor at Tsinghua University. “It landed and was functioning. That was an important first for Chinese science.”

　　“不管將來發(fā)生什么，你不能說玉兔是失敗的，”清華大學(xué)(Tsinghua University)航天航空學(xué)院教授符松表示。 “它降落在月球表面，并發(fā)揮了功能。這對中國科學(xué)事業(yè)來說是一個重要的創(chuàng)舉?！?/p>

　　China, a recent entrant to the space race, intends to land a person on the moon by 2025.

　　近年加入太空競賽的中國，打算在2025年將航天員送上月球。