Tag Archives: Pioneer 10

23 January 2003

Space Flight, , , ,
Artist's conception of Pioneer 10 in the outer solar system. (NASA)
Artist’s conception of Pioneer 10 in the outer solar system. (NASA)

23 January 2003: The final, very weak signal from Pioneer 10 was received on January 23, 2003 when it was 12 billion kilometers (80 Astronomical Units) from Earth.

The space probe was launched from Earth at 01:49:00 UTC, 2 March 1972, aboard an Atlas Centaur rocket.

“On January 1, 2016, Pioneer 10 was predicted to be 114.07 a.u. from the Earth (about 10 billion miles); and traveling at 12.04 km/s (26,900 mph) (relative to the Sun) and traveling outward at about 2.54 a.u. per year. Voyager 2 is projected to pass Pioneer 10 by April 2019. Sunlight takes 14.79 hours to reach Pioneer 10. The brightness of the Sun from the spacecraft is magnitude −16.6. Pioneer 10 is heading in the direction of the constellation Taurus.

“If left undisturbed, Pioneer 10 and its sister craft Pioneer 11 will join the two Voyager spacecraft and the New Horizons spacecraft in leaving the Solar System to wander the interstellar medium. The Pioneer 10 trajectory is expected to take it in the general direction of the star Aldebaran, currently located at a distance of about 68 light years. If Aldebaran had zero relative velocity, it would require more than two million years for the spacecraft to reach it.” — Wikipedia

Pioneer 10 is launched aboard an Atlas Centaur rocket at Space Launch Complex 36A, 01:49:00 UTC, 2 March 1972. (NASA)
Pioneer 10 is launched aboard an Atlas Centaur rocket at Space Launch Complex 36A, 01:49:00 UTC, 2 March 1972. (NASA)

© 2018, Bryan R. Swopes

3 December 1973, 02:26:00 UTC

Space Flight, , , , , ,
Photographic image of the planet Jupiter, taken by Pioneer 10, 3 December 1973. (NASA)
Photographic image of the planet Jupiter, taken by Pioneer 10, 3 December 1973. (NASA Ames Research Center)

3 December 1973: At 02:26:00 UTC, the NASA interplanetary probe Pioneer 10 reached its closest approach to the gas giant, Jupiter, 132,252 kilometers (82,178 miles) above the planet’s cloud tops. At that time, Pioneer 10 had a velocity of approximately 132,000 kilometers per hour (82,000 miles per hour).

Composite of images of the planet Jupiter during Pioneer 10’s approach (lower images, left to right) and departure (upper images, right to left). NASA

During the encounter with Jupiter, more than 500 photographic images were made and transmitted to Earth. A variety of measurements were made by sensors aboard the space craft.

An artist’s conception of Pioneer 10 at Jupiter. (NASA)

Pioneer 10 was built by the TRW Space & Technology Group, Redondo Beach, California, for the NASA Ames Research Laboratory. It was launched by a three-stage Atlas Centaur rocket from Launch Complex 36A, Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, Florida, 2 March 1972.

The last signal received from Pioneer 10 was on 23 January 2003. At that time, the probe was an estimated 12 billion kilometers (80 Astronomical Units) from Earth.

© 2018, Bryan R. Swopes