Page "Ulysses (spacecraft)" Paragraph 0

Ulysses is a decommissioned robotic space probe that was designed to study the Sun as a joint venture of NASA and the European Space Agency ( ESA ).

The spacecraft was originally named Odysseus, because of its lengthy and indirect trajectory to near Solar distance.

It was renamed Ulysses, the Latin translation of " Odysseus " at ESA's request in honour not only of Homer's mythological hero but also with reference to Dante's description in Dante's Inferno.

Originally scheduled for launch in May 1986 aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger.

Due to the loss of Challenger, the launch of Ulysses was delayed until October 6, 1990 aboard Discovery ( mission STS-41 ).

The spacecraft's mission was to study the Sun at all latitudes.

To do this required a major orbital plane shift.

Due to velocity change limitations of the Shuttle and the Inertial Upper Stage ( IUS ), this was accomplished by using an encounter with Jupiter to effect the plane change instead of an engine burn.

The need for a Jupiter encounter meant that Ulysses could not be powered by solar cells and was powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator ( RTG ) instead.