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From: jrv@MITRE-BEDFORD.ARPA (James R. Van Zandt)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Re: Ulysses probe
Message-ID: <8602280148.AA08000@mitre-bedford.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 27-Feb-86 22:51:33 EST
Article-I.D.: mitre-be.8602280148.AA08000
Posted: Thu Feb 27 22:51:33 1986
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>brahms!desj@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (David desJardins)
>In article <27219.509662022@csvax.caltech.edu> jon@CSVAX.CALTECH.EDU writes:
>>          Ulysses is a European probe, to  be  launched  from  the  Shuttle,
>>      which will go over one the Sun's poles ...
>>
>>     How can it go over one pole but not both?

It *will* go over both poles.

>   I don't have any idea what these people are talking about.  The whole
>idea is that Ulysses is being launched to rendezvous with Jupiter just
>like Voyager and Galileo, but it will swing around Jupiter and back over
>the solar pole.  Presumably it will then leave the solar system; what
>would cause it to circle around to the other pole??

It can't leave the solar system because it doesn't have enough energy. 
It'll be in an elliptical orbit around the sun like any planet, but the
plane of the orbit will be tilted with respect to the plane of (for
example) the earth's orbit.  If it were easy to supply the delta V to
place the probe far out of the plane of earth's orbit, we wouldn't have
to use Jupiter in the first place.  As it is, Jupiter is a convenient
place to "turn a corner" in space.

I suspect that scientists wanted two probes so they could observe both
poles of the sun *at the same time*.  With only one probe the long
delays that make it difficult to correlate what's seen at the two
poles.  Does anyone know what the period and inclination of the probe's
orbit will be?

          - Jim Van Zandt