The Ulysses Mission

Abstract

The Ulysses mission is unique in the history of the exploration of our solar system by spacecraft. The path followed by Ulysses will enable us, for the first time, to explore the heliosphere within a few astronomical units of the Sun over the full range of heliographic latitudes, thereby providing the first characterisation of the uncharted third heliospheric dimension. Highly-sophisticated scientific instrumentation carried on board the spacecraft is designed to measure the properties of the solar wind, the Sun/wind interface, the heliospheric magnetic field, solar radio bursts and plasma waves, solar X-rays, solar and galactic cosmic rays, and interplanetary/interstellar neutral gas and dust. Ulysses will also be used to detect cosmic gamma-ray bursts and search for gravitational waves. The mission is a collaboration between ESA and NASA, to be launched in May 1986 and utilising a Jupiter gravity-assist to achieve a high-solar-latitude trajectory.KeywordsSolar WindGravitational WaveCoronal HoleHeliographic LatitudeSolar Radio BurstThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.