Every day the RIME antenna shows more signs of movement, visible in images from the Juice Monitoring Camera on board the spacecraft with a partial view of the radar and its mount. Now partially extended but still stowed away, the radar is roughly a third of its full intended length.

The current leading hypothesis is that a tiny stuck pin has not yet made way for the antenna’s release. In this case, it is thought that just a matter of millimetres could make the difference to set the rest of the radar free.

Various options are still available to nudge the important instrument out of its current position. The next steps to fully deploy the antenna include an engine burn to shake the spacecraft a little followed by a series of rotations that will turn Juice, warming up the mount and radar, which are currently in the cold shadows.

Juice is otherwise performing excellently after the successful deployment and operation of its mission-critical solar arrays and medium gain antenna, as well as its 10.6-m magnetometer boom.