Key Radar Antenna Stuck On Europe's Jupiter-Bound Spacecraft (apnews.com) 39
The European Space Agency appears to have a slight problem: a critical antenna is jammed on their Jupiter-bound spacecraft launched two weeks ago. From the Associated Press: The 52-foot (16-meter) radar antenna on Juice unfolded only one-third of the way following liftoff, according to the space agency. Engineers suspect a tiny pin may be protruding. Flight controllers in Germany plan to fire the spacecraft's engine in hopes of shaking the pin loose. If that doesn't work, they said they have plenty of time to solve the problem.
Juice, short for Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, won't reach the giant planet until 2031. It's taking a roundabout path to get there, including gravity-assist flybys of Earth and our moon, and Venus. The radar antenna is needed to peer beneath the icy crust of three Jupiter moons suspected of harboring underground oceans and possibly life, a major goal of the nearly $1.8 billion mission. Its targets include Callisto, Europa and Ganymede, the largest moon in the solar system.
Juice, short for Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, won't reach the giant planet until 2031. It's taking a roundabout path to get there, including gravity-assist flybys of Earth and our moon, and Venus. The radar antenna is needed to peer beneath the icy crust of three Jupiter moons suspected of harboring underground oceans and possibly life, a major goal of the nearly $1.8 billion mission. Its targets include Callisto, Europa and Ganymede, the largest moon in the solar system.
Has Anybody Asked It (Score:2)
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to point the AE-35 antenna toward Earth?
It won't help, the primary AE-35 unit has failed. Worse than that, there is something wrong with the replacement AE-35 unit and it is expected to fail in the near future.
It's hardly out of the driveway. (Score:3)
Just have it come back and we'll get it corrected. It'll only lose a couple of weeks. No big deal. Warranty will probably cover it.
Re: It's hardly out of the driveway. (Score:3)
They'll probably blame its malfunction on America, just like they did with beagle 2.
Re:It's hardly out of the driveway. (Score:4, Interesting)
Just have it come back and we'll get it corrected. It'll only lose a couple of weeks. No big deal. Warranty will probably cover it.
Actually, it's already scheduled to come back. Three times (Aug 2024, Sept 2026, Jan 2029) for gravity slingshot maneuvers before flinging off to Jupiter. If the antenna hasn't already been deployed correctly, a small cubesat-sized robot could be boosted to meet it and attempt whatever repairs might be needed.
If matching speeds during the slingshot maneuver is too difficult, then send the robot to meet with it during apogee. They already know where and when it will be for the next six years. Getting something the size of a PS5 up to speed is much easier than accelerating something the "size of a small bus" like the ESA described it.
Shades of Galileo... (Score:2)
The large high-gain antenna on the Galileo Jupiter probe failed to fully unfold and the mission had to rely on the low-gain antenna and very low data rates.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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I was thinking back in the Gemini days when that Agena failed to emerge because someone left the shipping straps on the rocket.
Considering how vital this thing is, and how they only have one chance, it seems incredible that a small pin could scupper it. Need more detail, there must be more to it.
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I was thinking back in the Gemini days when that Agena failed to emerge because someone left the shipping straps on the rocket.
That is a classic but not as good as the Mars Climate Orbiter. They just had to use "standard" and didn't want to use that commie metric system.
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I still think it was creatures from the Id!
Acronyms are out of control (Score:3)
Apparently people can just pick any random set of letters and pretend they stand for some other random group of words - because otherwise I can't see how to get "JUICE" from "Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer" without some rather silly contortions.
First Choice (Score:2)
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They were worried MTG's head might explode.
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They should have named it JuIcy.
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The software is on it's second version, at least. I've never tried to get it working myself, not having seen a need. But I'd be astonished if there wasn't at least one webservice somewhere for generating screeds of potential backronyms from one list of keywor
IT Crowd (Score:3)
Did you try turning it off and back on again?
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How many times?
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The last I heard (yesterday) they were on the third cycle, and each time it deployed a bit further (which means they had a "how much has this system moved" sensor, not just a "deployment complete" limit switch). So ... whatever is blocking movement is moving, each time they cycle it.
Send in FixX (Score:1)
Engineers suspect a tiny pin may be protruding.
Musk is going to make SO much money with his Mars-based interplanetary probe repair service.
Foiled again (Score:1)
send another satellite to repair it (Score:2)
This sounds like a task for a tiny cube-sat with some jiggery-pokery tools. It has to reach the satellite eventually, match speed, land on it, then crawl around and do the appropriate poking. It should rely on the Juice satellite for communication once it gets there, and needs hardly any data rates before then, which should help allowing it to be small.
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Big exploration satellites like this would benefit from having a tiny jiggery-pokery robot bundled with them.
Rageshake! (Score:2)
I always appreciate problems that can be solved with the application of a good rageshake. Let's hope it works.
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Kinetic adjustments?
Space is hard (Score:2)
It ain't just the rocket science, it's the everything else too. A guy who was in the know told me once the the first iteration of the Hubble's solar arrays had a CTE mismatch somewhere that caused the whole thing to seize up and vibrate when it went into and out of eclipse. What a wonderful feature for a telescope that's supposed to be stable to less than an arcsecond for hours-long deep stares.
Wtf (Score:2)
How can this happen twice, both with Jupiter probes. Next time we send a probe to Jupiter make the pins weak for fucks sake.
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... release the aerodynamic fairing from around the payload.
Watch several parts of the payload float away, after being bent out of shape loose in the bottom of the payload bay.
"Oh - maybe they had a reason to do it like that ! Who'da thunk it? "
Lone Starr (Score:2)
a critical antenna is jammed on their Jupiter-bound spacecraft
There's only one man who would dare give me the raspberry. Lone Starr!!!
Plenty of time? (Score:2)
a proposal (Score:2)
Re: a proposal (Score:2)
The horse's mouth (Score:2)