At least that was the plan. The current engineering design and blueprints lead to refined calculations for the total weight of the RPI instrument of 49.8 kilograms and of this total weight 34.8 kilograms is taken up by the antenna wires and the deployer mechanism. The actual receiver and electronics weigh only 12 kilograms. The spacecraft power allocation to RPI is a maximum of 31.5 watts, and the peak power consumption cannot exceed 154 watts. Although the RPI instrument will be consuming about 15 - 20 watts during deployment of the antennas, onde this stage ends at the start of the mission, the RPI will only use 30.8 watts and 133 watts peak during its mission which gives a small margine to work with.
Scientists have to be able to talk to the instrument, send it commands and download data.
The RPI instrument will pass data to the CIDP which has been formatted into records which have a per-defined format. The instrument design calls for small weights to be placed at the ends of the 4 XY antenna wires, and as the spacecraft rotates, these weights will feel a centrifugal force of about 0.01 g's. The wires will be spooled-out very slowly from the spacecraft so that they do not begin to wrap up around the spacecraft, and the small weights weighing about 50 grams will keep the wires taught with about 3 pounds of tension. The spacecraft initially spins at 15 or so rpm, but at the end of the reel-out this is reduced to about .5 rpm. At this speed, the tips of the antenna wires will be moving in a circular path with a speed of 47 kilometers per hour.