Joint ESA/NASA team wins international award

The Ulysses mission operations team has won an international award in recognition of their outstanding contributions to the success and scientific productivity of the joint ESA/NASA observatory mission, now orbiting the poles of the Sun.

The ESA/NASA Ulysses team was tapped to receive the 2008 'International SpaceOps Award for Outstanding Achievement' by the International Committee on Technical Interchange for Space Mission Operations and Ground Data Systems, also known as the SpaceOps Committee. The award will be presented during the SpaceOps 2008 Conference, taking place from 12 to 16 May in Heidelberg, Germany.

The Ulysses spacecraft was launched in 1990 on a planned five-year mission; keeping the hugely successful spacecraft operating for more than 17 years has presented operations engineers on the ground with a series of unique challenges.

Science of the highest quality

"Fortunately, the science from our mission has been of the highest quality, which has made it easier for both ESA and NASA to justify extending the mission on three occasions. I'd also like to commend Dornier, now Astrium, for delivering such a robust spacecraft; from flying past Jupiter to traversing the poles of the Sun, it has performed everything it was designed to do and also a number of things that it wasn't," said Nigel Angold, ESA Mission Operations Manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), California.

According to the SpaceOps Secretariat, the Achievement award is presented for 'outstanding efforts in overcoming space operations and support challenges, and recognises those teams or individuals whose exceptional contributions were critical to the success of a space mission.'