“Juice spacecraft faces antenna malfunction on Jupiter mission”

While the few minutes it takes a spacecraft’s booster rocket to escape Earth’s gravity may be the most dangerous stretch of a mission, there is a great deal more that still needs to be done before anyone on Earth can truly relax. Space is about as unforgiving as you can imagine, and once your carefully crafted craft is heading into the black, there’s not much you can do to help if things don’t go according to plan.

This is exactly where The European Space Agency (ESA) is currently finding itself out With the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) spacecraft. The April 14 launch from the Guyana Space Center went off without a hitch, but when the probe’s 16-metre (52-foot) radar antenna was ordered to open, something jammed. Judging by the images taken from the on-board camera, the antenna is only extended by about 1/3 of its total length.

The current theory is that one of the launch pins is stuck somewhere, preventing the antenna from moving any further. If so, that means shuffling the pins a few millimeters will get them back into play. Unfortunately, there are no gremlins with small hammers stored on the rover, so the engineers on Earth had to get a little more creative.

It was hoped that the burning engines could be used to rock the plane, possibly dislodging the pins. They’re also considering turning the car around to move the antenna mount in and out of the sunlight – the idea being that some expansion and contraction of the metal components could also free things up.

Even in the worst case, the Radar Antenna for Icy Moons Exploration (RIME) is just one of ten instruments Juice will use to study Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa. So even though it would be a disappointment if they couldn’t get it online, the mission would still provide a lot of information about this amazing world.

Then again, Juice isn’t scheduled to reach Jupiter until at least July 2031, so there’s still plenty of time to try to find out. After all, it’s not the first space probe saved by a clever hack.