Ulysses Reaches Unprecedented Solar Lattitude

T.Hobbes writes: "The pioneering European Space Agency's (Esa) Ulysses spacecraft flew over the Sun's north pole on Saturday, reaching a high northern solar latitude of 80 degrees. BBC coverage; ESA site; JPL site"

mlp

[Anonymous Coward]

this [esa.int] site has a neat-o HTML app which describes the spacecraft itself. Poke around a bit..

Re:Ulysses?

[hhe_hee]

The launch was on October 6, 1990, 7:47:15 a.m. EDT. And it was the heaviest payload up to that date. Launch weight was 370 kg.

The mission is designed to sample the solar wind and the heliosphere at latitudes unexplored by any other spacecraft.

This is cool stuff :)

[hhe_hee]

Actually this is the second time its its 11-year lifetime, ESA/NASA's Ulysses spacecraft is about to fly over the Sun's north pole.

For those who doesn't realize it, this is really cool for a space engineer. Just the fact that Ulysses energy source are radioisotopes which makes it alive and kicking for such a long time (since October 6, 1990). If it had used solar panels it would have been dead for several years by now. This makes the probe able to watch the solar wind and the heliosphere at latitudes unexplored by any other spacecraft over a whole solar cycle (11 years). Its truly an excellent piece of space engineering artwork.

During this summer, NASA approved sufficient funds to keep the spacecraft operating until December 2003 and agreed to review any further funding in mid-2003. Last year, ESA approved its share of the funds until September 2004. If NASA later approves funds to keep the spacecraft operating until this date, Ulysses will end its travels on a high note, having completed two full solar orbits and observed a solar cycle from minimum to maximum to minimum again from its unique position outside the ecliptic plane. There have been some talking about havin it operating as long as 2006 but that is yet to be discussed. But having a space probe operational in that ruff environment for 16 years is truly remarkable.