June
30, 2009: Earlier
this month, the Ulysses mission team received a NASA
Group Achievement Award. Another milestone was reached
on June 10 when Ulysses became the longest-running ESA-operated
spacecraft, overtaking the International Ultraviolet
Explorer which logged 18 years and 246 days of operations.
"The
Ulysses team performed exceptionally by building and
operating a research probe that would return scientific
data for analysis no matter what challenges it encountered," said
Arik Posner, Ulysses program scientist at NASA Headquarters
in Washington. "The knowledge gained from Ulysses
proves what can be achieved through international cooperation
in space research."
The
Ulysses orbital path is carrying the spacecraft away
from Earth. The ever-widening gap has progressively
limited
the amount of data transmitted. Ulysses project managers,
with the concurrence of ESA and NASA, decided it was
an appropriate time to end this epic scientific adventure.
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This award is granted for notably outstanding leadership that affects NASA technical or administrative programs.
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