The previously announced mission end date of July 1, 2008, came and went but mission operations continued albeit in a reduced capacity. The availability of science data gathering was limited to only when "Ulysses" was in contact with a ground station due to the deteriorating S-band downlink margin no longer being able to support simultaneous real-time data and tape recorder playback. When the spacecraft was out of contact with a ground station, the S-band transmitter was switched off and the power was diverted to the internal heaters to add to the warming of the hydrazine. On June 30, 2009, ground controllers sent commands to switch to the low gain antennas. This stopped communications with the spacecraft, in combination with previous commands to shut down its transmitter entirely.