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From: steve@jplgodo.UUCP (Steve Schlaifer x3171 156/224)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Re: Ulysses probe
Message-ID: <588@jplgodo.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 4-Mar-86 14:54:58 EST
Article-I.D.: jplgodo.588
Posted: Tue Mar  4 14:54:58 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 7-Mar-86 06:44:27 EST
References: <[MC.LCS.MIT.EDU].836296.860303.KFL>
Organization: Jet Propulsion Labs, Pasadena, CA
Lines: 39
Summary: ullyses was to get 77 degrees out of ecliptic

In article <[MC.LCS.MIT.EDU].836296.860303.KFL>, KFL@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU ("Keith F. Lynch") writes:
>     From: brahms!desj@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (David desJardins)
> 
>        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
> 
>   I just spent several hours working out the math, and I am somewhat
> confused.  I assume that unlike the Voyager and Pioneer probes, that
> Ulysses has some onboard fuel to be used in the vicinity of Jupiter.
> If the Jupiter pass is completely passive, as with Pioneer and
> Voyager, the furthest out of the ecliptic it could get would be 26
> degrees, not 90 degrees as would be necessary to go over either of the
> Sun's poles.

The information I have about Ullyses indicates that the plan was to leave Earth
in an elliptical trajectory inclined about 2 degrees from the ecliptic.  A
hyperbolic flyby of Jupiter with an inclination of 141 degrees (i.e. retrograde
about Jupiter coming in ahead and above the planet) would then result in an
elliptical orbit about the sun which was inclined about 77 degrees to the
ecliptic passing over the South polar region first.  Indeed, such an orbit
would then pass over the North polar region at a later date but that was not
of immediate interest.  Also note that the mission would not pass directly over
the Sun's south pole but would pass very high over the polar region.

I am not directly involved with the mission but have limited access to the
mission design.  The information above is only approximate and was derived
by means of conic orbit approximations given the planned heliocentric orbits.

Opinions expressed are my own and not necessarily those of the Ulysses mission,
JPL or NASA.
-- 

...smeagol\			Steve Schlaifer
......wlbr->!jplgodo!steve	Advance Projects Group, Jet Propulsion Labs
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