Pioneer 10

Pioneer 10

Artist's conception of the Pioneer 10 spacecraft
Mission type	Outer Solar System and heliosphere exploration
Operator	NASA / ARC
COSPAR ID	1972-012A
SATCAT no.	5860
Website	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
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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.