Ulysses hanging on valiantly (Forwarded)

ESA News
http://www.esa.int

3 July 2008

Ulysses hanging on valiantly

The Ulysses spacecraft, whose mission was expected to end on 1 July 2008, is
hanging on valiantly as spacecraft controllers wait for a sign of the fuel
freeze that would end the mission. This could happen any time now.

Controllers will know that the fuel needed to keep the antenna pointing
towards Earth has started to freeze when Earth-pointing manoeuvres become
less efficient and the radio signals from the spacecraft grow weaker.

In the meantime, Ulysses is still providing important science data as it
pursues its exploration of the heliosphere, the sphere of influence of our
star.

Although the spacecraft can now transmit data only in real time, the amazing
17.5-year-old mission is using all the time it has left to add to the wealth
of information collected so far.

Notes for editors:

Ulysses is a joint mission between ESA and NASA. ESA provided the
spacecraft, built by Astrium GmbH, Friedrichshafen, Germany (formerly
Dornier Systems). NASA provided the Space Shuttle launch, the inertial upper
stage and the payload assist module to put Ulysses into its correct orbit.
NASA also provided the Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG) to power
the craft and its payload.

ESA's European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) and European
Space Operations Centre (ESOC) have been managing the mission in
coordination with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Ulysses is tracked
by NASA's Deep Space Network. A joint ESA/NASA team at JPL has overseen
spacecraft operations and data management. Teams from universities and
research institutes in Europe and the United States provided the 10
instruments on board.

For more information:

Richard Marsden, ESA Ulysses Mission Manager and Project Scientist
Email: Richard.Marsden @ esa.int

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