On 12 May RIME was finally jolted into life when the flight control team fired a mechanical device called a ‘non-explosive actuator’ (NEA), located in the jammed bracket. This delivered a shock that moved the pin by a matter of millimetres and allowed the antenna to unfold.

The images below were taken by MCSE’s JUICE Monitoring Camera.

Juice_s_longest_antenna_awaits_deployment
Juice_s_longest_antenna_awaits_deployment

© ESA/Juice/JMC CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO