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After all those years monitoring the sun, Ulysses is being cast off because its communications capabilities have deteriorated to the point that the cost of keeping it operational cannot be justified.

The transmitter aboard the joint NASA and European Space Agency satellite will be shut off Tuesday and the spacecraft will be left to a lonely orbit that will continue for several years.

Scientists will have plenty of Ulysses data to continue poring over and add to the list of its accomplishments.

"Ulysses has taught us far more than we ever expected about the sun and the way it interacts with the space surrounding it", said mission manager Richard Marsden.

MSNBC reported Sunday that Ulysses provided groundbreaking discoveries about the sun's magnetic field and the particles it expels into space.

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