The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
Go to topicProtecting life and infrastructure on Earth and in orbit
Go to topicUsing space to benefit citizens and meet future challenges on Earth
Go to topicMaking space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
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The joint ESA/NASA mission Ulysses was launched by the American shuttle Discovery on October 6th, 1990 (STS-41). This video index covers base material concerning Ulysses and its mission to explore the poles of the sun. Sequences are organised as follows: ""Ulysses is coming"", a short music clip;
graphic portrayal of Ulysses as a spin-stabilized deep space probe; Ulysses circumnavigates the poles of the Sun; Ulysses leaves the elliptic plane, using Jupiter's gravitational field as a slingshot; various clips of Ulysses' manufacture; an American shuttle launch, animation to illustrate payload deployment; various footage of the Sun, from the Earth and from space; the poles of the Sun are different to other regions- Sun diagram, photograph of Sun's north pole; heliosphere diagram, with temperature distribution annotations; magnetic map, x-ray map, radio map and astronomical footage to illustrate the influence of coronal holes on the solar wind; diagram of earth's magnetic field to illustrate how it acts like a huge