Ulysses Mission

Ulysses is a space mission designed to explore the unknown region of space above the poles of the Sun. Launched by the Space Shuttle Discovery on October 6. 1990, Ulysses flew by Jupiter in February, 1992, where a gravity assist manoeuvre placed the spacecraft in a unique solar polar orbit, allowing it to fly over the south pole of the Sun in 1994 and over the north pole in 1995. A second solar polar orbit was completed in 2001 and currently Ulysses continues its journey for a third orbit to be completed in 2008. Ulysses is a joint project of the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA.