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Groundbreaking Solar Mission Faces Chilly Death
iamlucky13 writes "Over 17 years ago, the Ulysses spacecraft was launched aboard the space shuttle Discovery for a unique NASA/ESA mission. While nearly all other probes travel along our solar system's ecliptic plane, Ulysses used a Jupiter gravity assist to swing 80 degrees out of plane, carrying it over the sun's poles for an unprecedented view. During a mission that lasted four times longer than planned, it has flown through the tails of several comets, helped pinpoint distant gamma-ray bursts, and provided data on the sun and its heliosphere from the better part of two solar cycles. Unfortunately, the natural reduction of power from its radioisotope thermal generator means it is now unable to even keep its attitude control fuel from freezing, and NASA has decided to formally conclude the mission on July 1."
The mission lasted 4 times longer than was planned. Not too shabby (unless you compare to those Mars rovers that just keep going and going...). Sure beats having the mission end prematurely due to stupid things like not having enough fuel or computer errors.
You can always tell when a story is based on a NASA press release. If the spacecraft exceeded its mission expectations, it's a "NASA spacecraft." But if it failed, it's a "Lockheed-built spacecraft" (or whichever contractor they decide to blame).
For a change it would be nice to see NASA give kudos to whatever contractor built the successful spacecraft for them.
I hope that after I die the one word people use to describe me is "resurrected."
"the real (legendary) Ulysses"
Hmm, so this probe is actually the real Ulysses.
I think the mission shouldn't officially be over unless useful data stops coming back, and I would assume a probe even just floating around aimlessly might still broadcast back some kinda data.
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I'd expect getting it to hit the sun anytime soon, would be a large delta-v maneuver, which it probably can't make anyway.
Because then you'd need a bigger heavier radiator to keep the RTG from melting early in the mission.
since it used a gravity assist to get into this orbit, I highly doubt it can in any way adjust its orbit enough to make it useful, unless another planet happens to stumble by... and since it intersects the orbital plane only twice per orbit, that's pretty bad odds too.
Oh it will probably get to the sun eventually, if it doesn't run into something else, but it will be dead long before.
It doesn't need to provide thrust. Read the article. They need energy to keep the fuel warm.
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
It's not a fallacy unless you're using it as an argument. This is just metaphorical language.
Ulysses cut off his nose and ears, pulled out his genitals for dog food, then sliced off his hands and feet.
I find it humorous how ancient writers went into great detail about how torture was done. It makes them sound obsessed with violence. I wonder if that was the style, or whether its just that such info tends to survive longer?
In 2500 years, will people be reading the same kinds of things about Guantanamo Bay and CIA water-boarding and think the same thing?
Table-ized A.I.
How could Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 last so much longer then? They are still transmitting after 30+ years, while Ulysses lasted 17 years, and was created later than the Voyager spacecrafts so that the RTG-technology assumingly must have gotten more advanced.
It's cute, but it's not actually accurate. Appeal to authority only applies if an arguer uses their own authority as the argument. From your own link it is, "a type of argument in logic consisting on basing the truth value of an assertion on the authority, knowledge, expertise, or position of the person asserting it," (emphasis mine).
It would be an A2A if a Wikipedia article claimed it doesn't need citations because of it being a Wikipedia article, or only cited other Wikipedia articles which themselves had no citations or only cited yet other Wikipedia articles.
Slay a dragon... over lunch!