Taking advantage of a rare alignment of the outer planets, NASA launched Pioneer 10 March 2, 1972. NASA started preparing for the mission in 1964 and created two spacecraft, Pioneer F and Pioneer G. Later they were renamed Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11.
On November 8, 1973, Pioneer 10 crossed the orbit of Sinope, an outer moon of Jupiter and made its closest approach to the planet December 3. The electron radiation around Jupiter caused false commands to be made but many were corrected by contingency commands. An image of Io and some close-up pictures of Jupiter were lost but the spacecraft obtained pictures of Ganymede and Europa.
On its way out of the solar system, Pioneer 10 crossed the orbit of Saturn in 1976, the orbit of Uranus in 1979, and the orbit of Neptune in 1983. It is the first spacecraft to leave the solar system.
The mission officially ended March 31, 1997 but the Deep Space Network kept track of its signal until January 23, 2003 when Pioneer 10 sent its last signal.
No comments:
Post a Comment