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The Ulysses Mission

The Ulysses Mission was originally proposed as a dual spacecraft mission to simultaneously explore the regions over the Sun's north and south poles. Funding problems reduced the mission to a single spacecraft set for launch in 1986. The Challenger disaster then pushed the actual launch by four years. The Ulysses spacecraft was launched from the Space Shuttle in October 1990 on its mission over the Sun's south and north poles.

This ESA/NASA mission is designed to sample the solar wind and the heliosphere at latitudes unexplored by any other spacecraft. The Ulysses spacecraft carried a suite of instruments out to Jupiter where that planet's gravity pulled the spacecraft into a trajectory that carried it over the Sun's south pole in the fall of 1994 and its north pole in the fall of 1995. Instruments onboard Ulysses measure particles, magnetic fields, and electro-magnetic radiation from radio wavelengths to gamma-rays. MSFC Solar Physics Branch member Steven Suess is a co-investigator on one of the solar wind experiments.

For additional information on the Ulysses mission visit these WWW sites:

The ESA Ulysses homepage

The NASA Ulysses homepage

The Ulysses Mission Operations page

Return to MSFC Solar Physics Branch homepage.

Author: David H. Hathaway, david.hathaway@msfc.nasa.gov, (205) 544-7610
Mail Code ES82, NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL 35812

Responsible Official: John M. Davis, davis@ssl.msfc.nasa.gov, (205) 544-7600
Mail Code ES82, NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL 35812

Curator

Last revised 1997 May 8 - D. H. Hathaway