Pioneer 10

Infobox_Spacecraft


Caption=Artist's Concept of Jupiter Encounter
Name=Pioneer 10
Mass= 258 kg
Organization= Ames Research Center - NASA
Launch_Vehicle= Atlas/Centaur/TE364-4
Launch= 1972-03-03 at 01:49:00 UTC (age in days|1972|03|03 days ago)
Mission_Type=Fly-by, Deep Space
Flyby_Of= Jupiter (release date and age|1973|12|03), Outer Solar System
Mission_Duration = undefined (age in days|1972|03|03|2003|01|23 days from launch to last contact)
(last contact release date and age|2003|01|23)

"Pioneer 10" ("Pioneer-F") was the first spacecraft to travel through the asteroid belt, which it entered on July 15, 1972, and to make direct observations of Jupiter, which it passed by on December 3, 1973. It was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Launch Complex 36A on March 2, 1972. "Pioneer 10" is heading in the direction of Aldebaran, located in Taurus.By some definitions, "Pioneer 10" has become the first artificial object to leave the solar system "(third cosmic velocity)". It is surely the first human-built object to have been set upon a trajectory leading out of the solar system. However, it still has not passed the heliopause or Oort cloud.

Its objectives were to study the interplanetary and planetary magnetic fields; solar wind parameters; cosmic rays; transition region of the heliosphere; neutral hydrogen abundance; distribution, size, mass, flux, and velocity of dust particles; Jovian aurorae; Jovian radio waves; atmosphere of Jupiter and some of its satellites, particularly Io; and to photograph Jupiter and its satellites.

Construction

. [William E. Burrows, "Exploring Space", (New York: Random House, 1990), p. 266-8.]

"Pioneer 10" was managed as part of the Pioneer program by NASA Ames Research Center and was built by TRW. [ [http://quest.nasa.gov/sso/cool/pioneer10/mission/ NASA mission profile] ] It was light, at only 260 kg—30 and 27 kg of which were instruments and fuel, respectively. [Ibid., p. 271.] Like the Voyagers, it was powered by radioisotope thermoelectric generators (SNAP-19s) containing plutonium-238, which provided 155W at launch, and 140W by the Jupiter flyby. The RTGs were mounted well away from the body to prevent their radiation from interfering with the spacecraft's instruments. [Ibid., pp. 271-2.]

"Pioneer 10" was fitted with a plaque to serve as a message for extraterrestrial life, in the event of its discovery.

A model of Pioneer 10 is on display at the "Milestones of Flight" exhibit at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. [cite web|url=http://www.nasm.si.edu/exhibitions/gal100/index.cfm#pioneer10|title=Milestones of Flight|publisher=Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum]

Instruments

Instruments on the "Pioneer 10" probe included:

* Helium Vector Magnetometer
* Plasma Analyzer
* Charged Particle Instrument
* Cosmic Ray Telescope
* Geiger Tube Telescope
* Trapped Radiation Detector
* Meteoroid Detector
* Asteroid-Meteoroid Experiment
* Ultraviolet Photometer
* Imaging Photopolarimeter
* Infrared Radiometer

Mission

"Pioneer 10" became the first spacecraft to encounter Jupiter in December, 1973.The spacecraft then made valuable scientific investigations in the outer regions of our solar system until the end of its mission on March 31, 1997.

Further contact

"Pioneer 10"'s weak signal continued to be tracked by the Deep Space Network as part of a new advanced concept study of chaos theory. After 1997 the probe was used in the training of flight controllers on how to acquire radio signals from space.

The last successful reception of telemetry was on April 27, 2002; subsequent signals were barely strong enough to detect. Loss of contact was probably due to a combination of increasing distance and the spacecraft's steadily weakening power source, rather than structural failure of the craft.

The last, very weak signal from "Pioneer 10" was received on January 23, 2003, when it was 7.5 billion miles (12 billion kilometres) from Earth. ["This Month in History", "Smithsonian" magazine, June, 2003.]

A contact attempt on February 7, 2003 was not successful.

One final attempt was made on the evening of March 4, 2006, the last time the antenna would be correctly aligned with Earth. No response was received from "Pioneer 10". [ [http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00000477/ The final attempt to contact "Pioneer 10"] ]

"Pioneer 10" is heading in the direction of the star Aldebaran in the constellation Taurus at roughly 2.6 AUs per year. If Aldebaran had zero relative velocity, it would take "Pioneer 10" about 2 million years to reach it. [ [http://www.heavens-above.com/solar-escape.asp Spacecraft escaping the Solar System] ]

Timeline

*March 3, 1972 Spacecraft launched.
*July 15, 1972 Entered the Asteroid Belt.
*December 3, 1973 "Pioneer 10" sent back the first close-up images of Jupiter.
*June 13 1983 "Pioneer 10" passed the orbit of Neptune, the outermost planet. (Although Pluto was considered to be a planet at the time, it was closer to the sun than Neptune due to its highly eccentric orbit.)
*March 31, 1997 End of mission.
*February 17, 1998 "Voyager 1" overtakes "Pioneer 10" as the most distant man-made object from the Sun, at 69.419 AU. "Voyager 1" is moving away from the Sun over 1 AU per year faster than "Pioneer 10".
*March 2, 2002 Successful reception of telemetry. 39 minutes of clean data received from a distance of 79.83 AU.
*April 27, 2002 The last successful reception of telemetry. 33 minutes of clean data received from a distance of 80.22 AU.
*January 23, 2003 The last, very weak, signal from "Pioneer 10" was received. Subsequent signals were barely strong enough to detect.
*February 7, 2003 Unsuccessful contact attempt.
*December 30, 2005 "Pioneer 10" was 89.7 AU away from the Sun.
*March 4, 2006 Final attempt at contact. No response was received from "Pioneer 10".

Pioneer anomaly

Analysis of the radio tracking data from the "Pioneer 10" and " 11" spacecraft at distances between 20–70 AU from the Sun has consistently indicated the presence of a small but anomalous Doppler frequency drift. The drift can be interpreted as due to a constant acceleration of (8.74 ± 1.33) × 10⁻¹⁰ m/s² directed towards the Sun. Although it is suspected that there is a systematic origin to the effect, none has been found. As a result, there is growing interest in the nature of this anomaly.

Gallery

Fictional references

*"Pioneer 10" was used for target practice and easily destroyed by a Klingon Bird of Prey in the movie "".
*"Pioneer 10" was also seen in episode 1.12 of "Futurama" in a quick pull from Earth to the planet Omicron Persei 8.
*"Pioneer 10" was mentioned in L. Ron Hubbard's novel "Battlefield Earth". The race that invaded earth, the Psychlos, found the plaque on board the spacecraft, guiding them to Earth. Apparently the plaque was made of a metal that was very valuable on the galactic commodity market; the Pioneer plaque is, in fact, made of gold-anodized aluminum. The novel begins in the year 3000, a millennium after finding "Pioneer 10" and the subsequent invasion of Earth.

References

See also

*Unmanned space missions
*Pioneer plaque
*"Pioneer 11"
*Voyager program
*Cassini probe
*S band

External links

* [http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/missions/archive/pioneer.html Pioneer Project Archive Page]
* [http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/missions/profile.cfm?MCode=Pioneer_10 Pioneer 10 Profile] by [http://solarsystem.nasa.gov NASA's Solar System Exploration]
* [http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/database/MasterCatalog?sc=1972-012A NSSDC Pioneer 10 page]
* [http://history.nasa.gov/SP-349/sp349.htm "Pioneer Odyssey," NASA SP-396, 1977] - This is an "entire book" about the Pioneer 10 and 11 project, with all pictures and diagrams, on-line! Scroll down to click on the "Table of Contents" link.
* [http://www.pioneer10.net/ PIONEER 10 ] - Canadian rock band of same name.
* [http://www.nap.edu/books/0309090504/html/ Mark Wolverton's "The Depths of Space" online]
* [http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/space/12/18/pioneer.contact/index.html A distant Pioneer whispers to Earth] - CNN article, December 19, 2002
* [http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects/pioneer_anomaly/update_200511.html 2005 Pioneer Anomaly Conference] - Mentions March 4, 2006 Contact Attempt