JUICE, ESA's L-class mission to the Jovian system Options

[volcanopele]

Hopefully these cameras stick around until the tour. They make great public relations cameras since they help to provide a “you are there” perspective which the science camera can sometimes lack do the narrow field of view.

[rlorenz]

I remember, back in 2007 I first posted here about a possible ESA/NASA collaboration to send several probes to explore further the Jovian system. At that time the project was called Laplace.
A lot happened since and there were many changes, but finally JUICE is on its way to the Jovian system and Europa Clipper will follow soon.

Indeed. There were NASA-funded ($1M each, IIRC) Flagship studies in 2007, one to Europa, one to Ganymede/Jovian System that were in parallel with (and actually had more technical analysis than) the Laplace concept (just a community response to an ESA call for ideas). At the same time, there was an ESA idea called TandEM and NASA Flagship studies for Titan, and for Enceladus - I served as project scientist and Science Definition Team chair for the Titan one : we came up with a single-launch lander + balloon + aerocapture concept.

In 2008, these studies were consolidated into a next joint study phase - Europa Jupiter system Mission (EJSM), and Titan Saturn System Mission (TSSM). NASA directed that TSSM must do both Titan and Enceladus, could not use aerocapture (negating a major advantage of Titan as a target), and that ESA would supply the sexy bits - lake lander and balloon. Unsurprisingly, although a credible mission design emerged, NASA elected to pursue the Europa mission (which eventually, via much convolution, became Clipper) to complement ESA's JUICE mission. (The 2013 Decadal Survey had a Ganymede New Frontiers mission, but basically said 'its a great mission, but ESA will probably do it...)

After a hopeful digression to explore a low-cost Discovery concept (the Titan Mare Explorer in 2012, thwarted by a stalled NASA radioisotope Stirling generator development, leaving NASA no choice but to select InSight instead) Titan was left out in the cold for the 20-teens.

But then in 2016, when NASA added Titan/Enceladus to the New Frontiers target list, Dragonfly was conceived, and was able to draw on the combined objectives that had been defined for a Titan lander and a Titan balloon back in 2007......

It's funny how things turn out.

[bobik]

According to this timeline, the RIME antenna should already be deployed. Unfortunately, ESA has largely fallen dumb, since the fine launch coverage, so who knows what's going on.

[bobik]

12 days after launch, ESA still continues to hold on tightly to its JUICE information embargo, however, in the Planetary Science Archive (PSA) has recently appeared a bunch of JUICE Monitoring Camera (JMC) images, albeit still 'On Hold'. A large quantity of images were made on 2023-04-19, probably the day of the RIME antenna deployment. At the meantime the magnetometer boom should also already be deployed, according to this pre-launch timeline.

PS. RADiation-hard Electron Monitor (RADEM) and High Accuracy Accelerometer (HAA) data are also flowing into the PSA.

[Bjorn Jonsson]

The magnetometer boom has been deployed: https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2...ence_from_space

[bobik]

Magnetometer boom deployment on 2023-04-21 at 14:29:38 UT, early on the 8th day of the expedition, so the published pre-launch timeline isn't very valid. Successful deployment has been made public five days after the event, strikingly, the web release doesn't mention the deployment of the RIME antenna, although successful deployment of the solar arrays and the medium gain antenna (MGA) is mentioned, thus RIME antenna status so far unknown.

[climber]

RIME didn’t fully deployed : https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Spa...ce_RIME_antenna

[dtolman]

Is RIME all or nothing? If it ends stuck at 1/3 deployed, is it still somewhat usable?

[StargazeInWonder]

The sun-shadow approach to unstick the problem would seem to be most effective, potentially, when JUICE is closest to the Sun, which will be six months from now around the time of its Venus flyby. So I guess that the time for greater worry would be if it remains stuck after that opportunity.

Partial deployment would certainly impact resolution at the very least, but whether or not partial deployment would permit useful operation depends upon further details which don't seem to be available yet. How much of the antenna is now perpendicular to the instrument's "look" direction; how much noise would be returned from the remaining portions of it? Hopefully we won't have to face those questions. If worse comes to worst, it remains true that Europa Clipper will also provide the opportunity to study Europa thorough with similar capability, and some representative ground tracks at Ganymede and Callisto.

[bobik]

RIME didn’t fully deployed : https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Spa...ce_RIME_antenna

According to the large quantity of JMC images in the PSA, they already tried something to release the antenna on 2023-04-27, however, which apparently didn't work.

EDIT: I don't think there is a description of the RIME Hold-Down and Release Mechanism (HDRM) published, at least I can't find one, but there are some photos on the web. Hmm... so where lies the problem?

[Bjorn Jonsson]

RIME antenna successfully deployed!!

https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Spa...nna_breaks_free

[nogal]

Good news. The RIME antenna is free

See ESA announcement at https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Spa...nna_breaks_free

PS: well done Bjorn! I was fiddling with the mobile's keybord and did not notice your post

[Explorer1]

Bravo! May that pin never be seen again!
(And the advantage of having engineering cameras is demonstrated once more...)

[climber]

They deserve Champagne, not only free juice 🤦‍♂️

[StargazeInWonder]

If you count Lucy's solar panels, and Juno's valves, all four orbiters that have been sent to Jupiter (and its Trojans) have had a part stuck during deployment. Luckily, all of these have had successful workarounds and a complete resolution in this case, but that four out of four number is eyebrow-raising.