The Ulysses was sent from the earth 18 years ago to run around the Sun and find out answers for most of the unanswered questions about the Sun. The orbiter did run nearly three times around the raging Sun and sent back lot of useful information.
The joint project between NASA and the European Space Agency has traveled over 5.4 billion miles and the transmitter has been switched off last week, thus ending the 18 year Solar Mission.