Pioneer Project website (archived) NASA Archive page
Mission duration
30 years, 10 months and 21 days[1]
Spacecraft properties
Manufacturer
TRW
Launch mass
258 kg[1]
Power
155 watts (at launch)
Start of mission
Launch date
March 3, 1972 (1972-03-03) at 01:49:04 UTC [2]
Rocket
Atlas SLV-3C Centaur-D Star-37E
Launch site
Cape Canaveral LC-36A
End of mission
Last contact
Last telemetry April 27, 2002; last signal received January 23, 2003 (2003-01-23)[3]
Flyby of Jupiter
Closest approach
December 3, 1973 (1973-12-03)[4]
Distance
132,252 km (82,178 mi)
Instruments
HMV
Helium Vector Magnetometer
-
Quadrispherical Plasma Analyzer
CPI
Charged Particle Instrument
CRT
Cosmic Ray Telescope
GTT
Geiger Tube Telescope
TRD
Trapped Radiation Detector
-
Meteoroid Detectors
AMD
Asteroid/Meteoroid Detector
-
Ultraviolet Photometer
IPP
Imaging Photopolarimeter
-
Infrared Radiometer
Pioneer
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Pioneer 11 →
Pioneer 10 (originally designated Pioneer F) is a NASA space probe launched in 1972 that completed the first mission to the planet Jupiter.[5]Pioneer 10 became the first of five planetary probes and 11 artificial objects to achieve the escape velocity needed to leave the Solar System. This space exploration project was conducted by the NASA Ames Research Center in California. The space probe was manufactured by TRW Inc.
Pioneer 10 was assembled around a hexagonal bus with a 2.74-meter (9 ft 0 in) diameter parabolic dish high-gain antenna, and the spacecraft was spin stabilized around the axis of the antenna. Its electric power was supplied by four radioisotope thermoelectric generators that provided a combined 155 watts at launch.
It was launched on March 3, 1972, at 01:49:00 UTC (March 2 local time), by an Atlas-Centaur rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Between July 15, 1972, and February 15, 1973, it became the first spacecraft to traverse the asteroid belt. Photography of Jupiter began on November 6, 1973, at a range of 25 million kilometers (16 million miles), and about 500 images were transmitted. The closest approach to the planet was on December 3, 1973, at a range of 132,252 kilometers (82,178 mi). During the mission, the on-board instruments were used to study the asteroid belt, the environment around Jupiter, the solar wind, cosmic rays, and eventually the far reaches of the Solar System and heliosphere.[5]
Radio communications were lost with Pioneer 10 on January 23, 2003, because of the loss of electric power for its radio transmitter, with the probe at a distance of 12 billion km (80 AU; 7.5 billion mi) from Earth.
^ ab"Pioneer 10". NASA's Solar System Exploration website. Retrieved August 10, 2023.
^"A Summary of the Pioneer 10 Maneuver Strategy" (PDF). October 1972.
^"Beyond Earth: A Chronicle of Deep Space Exploration". September 20, 2018.
^"The Pioneer Missions". NASA. March 26, 2007. Archived from the original on June 29, 2011. Retrieved May 7, 2019.
^ abFimmel, R. O.; W. Swindell; E. Burgess (1974). SP-349/396 PIONEER ODYSSEY. NASA-Ames Research Center. SP-349/396. Retrieved January 9, 2011.
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functioning and are regularly contacted by radio communication, while Pioneer10 and Pioneer 11 are now defunct. In addition to these spacecraft, some upper...
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close observations by automated spacecraft. It began with the arrival of Pioneer10 into the Jovian system in 1973, and, as of 2023[update], has continued...
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replica of the Pioneer10 and Pioneer 11 probes. Pioneer Venus Orbiter, a mission to Venus from 1978 to October 1992, officially designated Pioneer 12. This...
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