PASADENA -- Ulysses, a joint NASA and European Space Agency mission, will officially cease operations Monday, 30th June, when the command to switch off the transmitter is up-linked to the spacecraft. Ulysses, which is working for more than 18 years, had charted the unexplored regions of space above the poles of the sun.
The Ulysses orbital path is carrying the spacecraft away from Earth; the ever-widening gap has progressively limited the amount of information transmitted. Ulysses project managers, with the concurrence of European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA, decided it was a right time to end this epic scientific adventure.
Space Shuttle Discovery launched Ulysses on 6th October, 1990. A combination of solid fuel motors propelled Ulysses out of low-Earth orbit and toward Jupiter, Ulysses swung by Jupiter on 8th Feb., 1992. The giant planet's gravity bent the spacecraft's flight path southward and away from the ecliptic plane, putting the probe into a last orbit that would take it over the sun's south and north poles.
The European Space Agency's European Space Research and Technology Centre and European Space Operations Centre have managed the assignment in coordination with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Ulysses was tracked by NASA's Deep Space Network. A joint ESA/NASA team at JPL has overseen spacecraft operations and information management. Teams from universities and research institutes in Europe and the U.S. provided the ten instruments on board.
The Ulysses orbital path is carrying the spacecraft away from Earth; the ever-widening gap has progressively limited the amount of information transmitted. Ulysses project managers, with the concurrence of European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA, decided it was a right time to end this epic scientific adventure.
Space Shuttle Discovery launched Ulysses on 6th October, 1990. A combination of solid fuel motors propelled Ulysses out of low-Earth orbit and toward Jupiter, Ulysses swung by Jupiter on 8th Feb., 1992. The giant planet's gravity bent the spacecraft's flight path southward and away from the ecliptic plane, putting the probe into a last orbit that would take it over the sun's south and north poles.
The European Space Agency's European Space Research and Technology Centre and European Space Operations Centre have managed the assignment in coordination with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Ulysses was tracked by NASA's Deep Space Network. A joint ESA/NASA team at JPL has overseen spacecraft operations and information management. Teams from universities and research institutes in Europe and the U.S. provided the ten instruments on board.
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