This artist's impression shows the ESA/NASA Ulysses spacecraft. Launched in 1990, the European-built spacecraft visits both polar regions once every 6.2 years as it circles the Sun in an orbit that is almost perpendicular to the ecliptic, the plane in which Earth and the planets move. Credits: ESA

Ulysses mission coming to a natural end

Ulysses, the mission to study the Sun’s poles and the influence of our star on surrounding space is coming to an end.

After more than 17 years in space – almost four times its expected lifetime – the mission is finally succumbing to its harsh environment and is likely to finish sometime in the next month or two.

In an attempt to solve this problem, the ESA-NASA project team approved a plan to temporarily shut off the main spacecraft transmitter. This would release 60 watts of power that could be channelled to the science instruments and the heater. When data was to be transmitted back to Earth, the team planned to turn the transmitter back on. Unfortunately, during the first test of this method in January, the power supply to the radio transmitter failed to turn back on.

After many attempts, the Ulysses project team now consider it highly unlikely that the X-band transmitter will be recovered. They believe the fault can be traced to the power supply, meaning that the extra energy they hoped to gain cannot be routed to the heater and science instruments after all.

Read the ESA full story at
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEM6UE3CXCF_index_0.html