Ulysses mission coming to an end
Posted: Sat, Feb 23, 2008, 10:45 AM ET (1545 GMT)
An ESA/NASA mission to study the Sun is approaching its end as the spacecraft is no longer able to keep itself warm. Ulysses, a spacecraft launched by the space shuttle in 1990, is in a solar polar orbit that takes it out to Jupiter's orbit; the spacecraft is currently heading away from the Sun in its orbit. Ulysses's radioisotope power source is no longer able to power the spacecraft's heaters, causing the spacecraft to cool. Project engineers expect that the spacecraft's internal temperature will reach 2°C in the next few weeks, causing the spacecraft's hydrazine fuel to freeze and preventing the spacecraft from maneuvering, effectively ending the mission. Efforts to reroute power from other systems, including the spacecraft's X-band transmitter, have failed. During its mission the spacecraft provided the first observations of the solar poles and returned data on the Sun's magnetic fields and interstellar dust and gas.
An ESA/NASA mission to study the Sun is approaching its end as the spacecraft is no longer able to keep itself warm. Ulysses, a spacecraft launched by the space shuttle in 1990, is in a solar polar orbit that takes it out to Jupiter's orbit; the spacecraft is currently heading away from the Sun in its orbit. Ulysses's radioisotope power source is no longer able to power the spacecraft's heaters, causing the spacecraft to cool. Project engineers expect that the spacecraft's internal temperature will reach 2°C in the next few weeks, causing the spacecraft's hydrazine fuel to freeze and preventing the spacecraft from maneuvering, effectively ending the mission. Efforts to reroute power from other systems, including the spacecraft's X-band transmitter, have failed. During its mission the spacecraft provided the first observations of the solar poles and returned data on the Sun's magnetic fields and interstellar dust and gas.| <<previous article | next article>> |
|
news in brief
|
|
|
|
news links
|
|
Saturday, February 7
Supermassive black holes sit in ‘eye of their own storms,’ studies find
Univ. of Chicago — 1:08 pm ET (1808 GMT) SpaceX Launching Falcon 9 With 25 Starlink Satellites
Santa Barbara (CA) Edhat — 8:24 am ET (1324 GMT) Epstein Was Adviser Behind Funding of Starlink Rival OneWeb
Bloomberg News — 8:23 am ET (1323 GMT) SpaceX targeting Saturday morning for Falcon 9 rocket launch
KEYT-TV Santa Barbara, CA — 8:22 am ET (1322 GMT) China sends fourth ‘Shenlong’ reusable spacecraft mission into orbit
South China Morning Post — 8:21 am ET (1321 GMT) |
