PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109. TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011

ULYSSES MISSION STATUS
October 1, 1995

     The Ulysses spacecraft completed its primary mission of 
exploring the poles of the Sun at 2 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time on 
September 29, when it left the high latitude region of the 
northern solar pole. Today the spacecraft is approximately 69 
degrees north of the Sun's equator, traveling at a heliocentric 
velocity of about 84,500 kilometers per hour (52,500 miles per 
hour).

     All operations and science experiments continue to go well 
in this first ever journey out of the ecliptic plane. NASA's 
tracking facilities near Madrid, Spain and at Goldstone, Calif. 
continue to monitor the spacecraft about 12 hours each day.

     Ulysses will now begin to journey back out to the orbit of 
Jupiter, reaching the giant planet's distance of 5.4 astronomical 
units (about 800 million kilometers or 500 million miles) on 
April 17, 1998. Once there, the spacecraft will then head back on 
its high latitude trajectory toward the Sun, returning again to 
its vicinity in September 2000. 

     The mission -- a joint project of the European Space Agency 
and NASA -- has been funded for a second pass over the Sun's 
poles in 2000. When Ulysses returns, the Sun will be in its most 
active sunspot phase and the solar magnetic field will have 
reversed polarity. Scientists expect to learn much more about the 
forces at work in this complex star during the peak of its 
activity.    

     
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