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Jade Rabbit, the rover China landed on the moon last year, continues to function despite severe mechanical problems that prevent it from moving, a scientist on the project told the Chinese state news media.

The rover “has been woken up after the past dormancy, but the problems still exist,” said Wu Weiren, the lunar probe’s chief designer, the state news agency Xinhua reported on Monday.

“We still hope to obtain a lot of scientific readings,” Zhang Yuhua, the vice director of the Chang’e-3 program, told Xinhua. “Jade Rabbit, which has already exceeded its life expectancy, continues to amaze.”

China became only the third nation after the Soviet Union and the United States to conduct a soft landing on the moon after it launched the Chang’e-3 probe in December. The mission carried the Jade Rabbit rover, known in Chinese as Yutu, which was designed to traverse the lunar surface, collecting images and sampling surface materials.

The rover ran into trouble six weeks later, when scientists were unable to fully close its shield to protect its electronics during the cold, two-week lunar night. In February, officials with the project said that the probe was not yet dead and was still able to carry out some of its functions.

Ms. Zhang said the rover had been damaged in January by bumping into a rock while moving along the moon’s surface.

The vicissitudes of the lunar buggy’s months on the moon were covered closely by Chinese state news media, which even published articles in the first person that were supposedly from Jade Rabbit’s perspective on the moon.

While the failings of the probe were criticized by some Chinese as emblematic of taxpayers’ money wasted on a state prestige project, experts cautioned that the moon is a very harsh environment, and the probe was expected to function for no more than three months. That it was able to land, travel on the moon’s surface and send back data are all important achievements for the Chinese space program, they said.

“Fortunately, the rover has completed its designated scientific and engineering tasks,” Mr. Wu told Xinhua.

China’s space program has said it will send another probe to the moon next year. A subsequent probe, Chang’e-5, is being designed to land on the moon and then return to Earth with samples of lunar materials.