MISSIONUPDATE BY JONATHAN MCDOWELL
Compton Gamma Ray Observatory
Commanded out of orbit by NASA flight engineers, the
Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (CGRO) plunged to de-
struction on June 4th. It thus becomes the first of NASA’s four
Great Observatories to complete its mission (July issue, page
48). CGRO was launched aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis in
April 1991, just a year after the Hubble Space Telescope
reached orbit. It carried four instruments: the BATSE gamma-
ray burst detector, which disproved earlier theories that these
energetic blasts come from our own galaxy; the OSSE and
Comptel medium-energy gamma-ray telescopes, which studied
emissions in the Milky Way and from nearby active galaxy nu-
clei; and the EGRET high-energy detector, which discovered a
range of new sources, including gamma-ray quasars.
NASA decided to end the mission because of concerns
that a second gyroscope failure might make it difficult to bring
the spacecraft down safely. (With a dry mass of 13.8 metric
tons, Compton is one of the heaviest objects to fall from orbit
in recent years.) In early May, CGRO was observing solar-flare
gamma rays from its 485-kilometer-high, 28.5°-inclination
orbit. Controllers shut down the science instruments on May
27th, and the first descent burn occurred four days later. Early
on June 4th, a third burn lowered perigee to only 148 km, and
one orbit later, the fourth and final burn dropped CGRO’s
perigee to a mere 28 km. At 6:09 Universal Time the spacecraft
began tumbling, and its internal temperature soared. Loss of
radio contact came one minute later, and the surviving debris
hit the Pacific Ocean southeast of Hawaii at 6:18 UT.
Ulysses
The European Space Agency’s Ulysses spacecraft is poised to
begin its second traverse of the Sun’s polar regions. The probe
will be within 7° of the south pole (though several hundred
million kilometers away) from September 8th until next Janu-
ary 16th. This should be an especially rewarding pass, as the
Sun is now going through the most dynamic portion of its 11-
year activity cycle. Throughout this year’s solar maximum
Ulysses has been studying the Sun’s magnetic field and the solar
wind, as well as the varying intensity of cosmic rays coming
through the solar system. The probe’s north-polar pass will
p as
s 20th. Despite occasional thermal problems,
Ulysses’s o la r 2 0 0 1
p ec
Second Solar Orbit r th – D Jan Jan
No ept 2002 2003
S
Earth
Perihelion
May 2001 Sun
Jupiter Se Sou
pt th
2 0 p ol
0 0 ar p Jan
– Ja a ss
n 20 2000
01
30 September 2000 Sky & Telescope ©2000 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.
30° N
140° W 120° W
Compton High-drag
Observatory Mexico
limit
Hawaii Low-
drag
Deor 10° N
Most likely limit
bit
SOURCE: NASA/GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER
fall site
84 km
Breakup altitude
70 km
Debris with Debris with
high drag low drag
Pacific Ocean
The Compton Gamma Ray Observatory was so massive that several
dozen large pieces probably survived its fiery reentry on June 4th. The
most likely crash site was about 3,900 kilometers southeast of Hawaii.
occur next year from September 3rd to December 12th. Ulysses
is also used to help triangulate accurate positions for the
brightest gamma-ray bursts from extragalactic space. In early
June ESA managers approved an extension to the mission,
which means Ulysses will continue operating until returning to
the vicinity of Jupiter in late 2004. (After its launch in 1990, the
spacecraft skirted close to Jupiter in February 1992 and, in
doing so, was flipped into its current high-inclination orbit
around the Sun.) However, by then the slowly declining power
output of the craft’s plutonium radioisotope generators will re-
quire that a few instruments be switched off periodically.
Alexis
The terrible fire that ravaged northern New Mexico in May
was a close call for the Alexis extreme-ultraviolet astronomy
satellite. Launched in May 1993, Alexis is normally controlled
by a small team at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and its
operations are highly automated. Lab employees were evacuat-
ed on May 6th, expecting to be back within a few days, but
were unable to return permanently until May 22nd. Fortunate-
ly, power and computing services remained on, and the Alexis
team members were able to log in remotely — they even com-
manded a crucial spin-up maneuver on May
Alexis continues scanning the sky with six small
telescopes. These optics, which utilize multilay-
ered molybdenum-silicon coatings to enhance
Jan
2004 their reflectivity at very short wavelengths, are
gathering data on the soft X-ray background
Aphelion and transient cosmic sources.
April 1998
SOURCE: EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY
Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-
Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, writes a weekly
Jan
1999 electronic newsletter on the space program (http://hea-
www.harvard.edu/QEDT/jcm/space/jsr/jsr.html).
Over the next 15 months the Ulysses spacecraft will
spend much of its time over the Sun’s polar regions.