ESA’s Ingenious Solution to RIME Antenna’s Deployment Failure
After the Radar for Icy Moon Exploration (RIME) antenna on ESA’s Juice mission encountered deployment issues post-launch, combined efforts from engineers at ESA, Airbus, and SpaceTech successfully rectified the problem. Suspecting ice formation as the issue, they heated the spacecraft by sun exposure, but when this didn’t work, they continued with the planned antenna deployment, which eventually dislodged the stuck pin and successfully deployed the antenna. (Juice flyby of Ganymede, artist’s impression.) Credit: ESAWhen…