What's Up With Ulysses?, alive? dead? cancelled soon? Options

[deglr6328]

What is up with the tiny Ulysses spacecraft that was launched in 1990 to study the solar whatever at high lattitudes? Last I heard it was in danger of dying because the RTG power was running low and at aphelion there was a risk of the hydrazine freezing/exploding in its propulsion system. Well that was like a year ago and I haven't heard anything since. It looks like it should've passed aphelion by now and should be out of danger.....

Its been going up there for over a full solar cycle, is it one of the missions on the chopping block because of the new humans on moon/mars thing?

[nprev]

I agree with ustrax; the longevity of this spacecraft (and others) is astounding. These are arguably among the most complex devices ever built, yet without hands-on maintenance, periodic overhauls, etc., they just keep going. Wonder if the space agencies might be interested in building a few cars on the side...

All that aside, how much longer can Ulysses keep going given this new power conservation strategy? Also, is there any possibility that it will re-encounter Jupiter at some point?

[Paolo]

Also, is there any possibility that it will re-encounter Jupiter at some point?

Back when I was in university, a dozen of years ago I played with simulating Ulysses' orbit. In that occasion I "discovered" the second flyby of 2003.
Ulysses crosses Jupiter's orbit every 6.5 years, and approaches it every 13 years, but IIRC, the encounter distance is increasing and there will be no more flybys during all of the 21st century.

[IM4]

Back when I was in university, a dozen of years ago I played with simulating Ulysses' orbit. In that occasion I "discovered" the second flyby of 2003.
Ulysses crosses Jupiter's orbit every 6.5 years, and approaches it every 13 years, but IIRC, the encounter distance is increasing and there will be no more flybys during all of the 21st century.

I explored Ulysses orbit evolution with JPL HORIZONS system. Here are some interesting encounters till the end of XXI century:

CODE

          Date (CT)       Body  CA Dist      Vrel
  ----------------------  -----  --------  ------
  A.D. 1992 Feb 08.78380  Juptr  0.006795  20.895
  A.D. 2004 Feb 04.98546  Juptr  0.804396  13.984
  A.D. 2086 Nov 13.65625  Juptr  0.780194  14.070
  A.D. 2095 Nov 01.78213  Mars   0.056797  37.722
  A.D. 2098 Nov 07.59152  Juptr  0.004053  24.594

November 7, 2098 Ulysses will be kicked out of the Solar system by Jupiter's gravity. Spacecraft's final trajectory will be highly hyperbolic (eccentricity~1.42), so it will be travelling very fast and one day, thousands years from now, Ulysses will reach some star.