Mark Schuler (American, B. 1951) "Ulysses Deep Space Probe" Signed lower right. Original Mixed Media painting on Illustration Board. Provenance: Collection of James A. Helzer (1946-2008), Founder of Unicover Corporation. This painting was originally published on the Fleetwood First Day Cover for the Great Britain 22p Europe in Space stamp issued April 23, 1991. On October 6, 1990, the space shuttle Discovery lifted off from Florida's Cape Canaveral. Six hours later, the crew of Discovery opened its payload doors to deploy valuable European cargo -- the deep-space probe Ulysses. This extraordinary joint NASA-ESA (European Space Agency) venture culminated decades of intensive research and development by the ESA's unique commonwealth of science. Slated to be the first spacecraft to explore the polar regions of the Sun, Ulysses ignited the first of its three upper-stage motors within seventy minutes after discharge from Discovery and rocketed toward Jupiter, its first stop during a five-year mission. The probe carried a payload comprised of instruments designed to measure the solar wind, the heliospheric magnetic field, radio bursts and plasma rays, solar energetic particles and galactic cosmic rays, interstellar neutral gas and cosmic dust. Encountering Jupiter in 1992, Ulysses utilized the enormous planet's gravitational pull to propel itself out of elliptic orbit into direct solar orbit. For the next two hundred and thirty-five days, Ulysses hovered between 70 and 80 degrees solar latitude, conducting its priceless research and relaying information back to Earth. Image Size: 14.5 x 12.5 in. Overall Size: 20 x 18 in. Unframed. (B13197)