Mark McCaughreanMay 12, 2023

Outstanding news from our ESA #JUICEmission to Jupiter & its icy moons, launched on 14 April 🚀🛰️

The 16-metre long RIME radar antenna, designed to probe up to 10 kilometres into the icy crusts of Ganymede, Europa, & Callisto, has now been successfully deployed, after earlier problems 👍

Excellent work by our project & operations team, & fantastic news for all of the scientists involved 🙇‍♂️

#SpaceExploration #SpaceFlight #Astrodon

https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Juice/Juice_s_RIME_antenna_breaks_free

Juice’s RIME antenna breaks free

More than three weeks after efforts began to deploy Juice’s ice-penetrating Radar for Icy Moon Exploration (RIME) antenna, the 16-metre-long boom has finally escaped its mounting bracket.

Show threadadingbatponder  👾
@markmccaughrean woah ! that was kept quiet.... what a #£&% up that would have been. Do they normally have #NEA s in these things ?? Were they a backup or what? Cool. There must have been quite some stress ....
May 12, 2023 at 6:08pmWeb
Show threadMark McCaughreanMay 12, 2023

@adingbatponder Yep, lots of relief around here. Losing RIME would have have been a big loss, albeit not mission critical. JUICE will probe the oceans below the crusts via gravity/radio science, laser altimetry, & magnetic field measurements as well.

But it wasn't kept quiet – we had informed everyone that there were problems a couple of weeks ago, if not before: https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Juice/Work_continues_to_deploy_Juice_RIME_antenna

Work continues to deploy Juice RIME antenna

Juice’s ice-penetrating RIME antenna has not yet been deployed as planned. During the first week of commissioning, an issue arose with the 16-metre-long Radar for Icy Moons Exploration (RIME) antenna, which is preventing it from being released from its mounting bracket.

Show threadMark McCaughreanMay 12, 2023
@adingbatponder As for the use NEA's, yes, they're standard. I'm not sure exactly which NEA was fired to generate the necessary shock & whether the stuck pin was also an NEA – something to try & get more details on from my project friends.
Show threadadingbatponder  👾May 12, 2023
@markmccaughrean The launch got loads of publicity on mass media much to my surprise in DE, but there was no mass reporting of anything stuck. I did not mean to imply ESA kept it quiet - I meant the media did not pick up on it. No probs.
Show threadMark McCaughreanMay 12, 2023

@adingbatponder No worries. Perhaps a timing issue – the deployment didn't start until a week or so after launch, at which point the news machine had moved on, I guess.

As for good launch coverage in Germany, that can only have been down to the TV interviews I did with ARD in my terrible German, surely 🤪