Paris: Ulysses, a US-European space scout that has
been orbiting the Sun for 17 years, almost four times its expected
lifetime, is on the brink of dying, the European Space Agency (ESA)
said on Friday.
A joint mission between ESA and NASA, Ulysses
was launched by space shuttle in 1990 in the first mission to study the
environment of space above and below the poles of the Sun.
The probe is on a huge, six-year orbit of the Sun that takes it out as far as
the orbit of Jupiter.
A
radioactive isotope provides Ulysses with power for communications and
scientific equipment and for onboard heaters to warm its hydrazine
fuel, which freezes when the temperature falls below minus two degrees
Celsius.
But the isotope source is running low, and the craft
can no longer send back large quantities of data, nor can it ward off
the deep chill of space.
As a result, the fuel lines will freeze
up in the next month or two, leaving Ulysses unmanoeuvrable and doomed
to encircle the Sun for aeons.
“Ulysses is a terrific workhorse.
It has produced great science and lasted much longer than we ever
thought it would,” said Richard Marsden, the project’s chief scientist
and mission manager.
The team plan to continue operating the
spacecraft for as long as they can before the curtain comes down, some
time in the next month or two, ESA said in a press release.
“The
reams of data Ulysses has returned have forever changed the way
scientists view the Sun and its effect on the space surrounding it,”
the agency said.
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