SCIENCE IN THE NEWS DAILY

Solar Orbiter Ulysses Ends Mission After 18 Years

from the Boston Globe (Registration Required)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The interplanetary space probe Ulysses officially ceased operations on Tuesday after an 18-year voyage of roughly 5.5 billion miles and nearly three complete orbits around the sun, NASA said.

Radio contact with the Volkswagen-sized spacecraft was halted by ground controllers shortly after 4 p.m. EDT, but NASA project manager Ed Massey said Ulysses will continue its wide, elliptical orbit around Earth's local star indefinitely.

He said there was a chance the probe might eventually swing close enough to one of Jupiter's moons to alter its course and place it on a path that will take it out of solar system and into interstellar space.