Pioneers 10 and 11 deep space missions

Conference · Thu Feb 01 04:00:00 EST 1990

OSTI ID:6966718

Dyal, P

Pioneers 10 and 11 were launched from Earth, 2 March 1972, and 5 April 1973, respectively. The Pioneers were the first spacecraft to explore the asteroid belt and the first to encounter the giant planets, Jupiter and Saturn. The Pioneer 10 spacecraft is now the most distant man-made object in our solar system and is farther from the Sun than all nine planets. It is 47 AU from the Sun and is moving in a direction opposite to that of the Sun's motion through the galaxy. Pioneer 11 is 28 AU from the Sun and is traveling in the direction opposite of Pioneer 10, in the same direction as the Sun moves in the galaxy. These two Pioneer spacecraft provided the first large-scale, in-situ measurements of the gas and dust surrounding a star, the Sun. Since launch, the Pioneers have measured large-scale properties of the heliosphere during more than one complete 11-year solar sunspot cycle, and have measured the properties of the expanding solar atmosphere, the transport of cosmic rays into the heliosphere, and the high-energy trapped radiation belts and magnetic fields associated with the planets Jupiter and Saturn. Accurate Doppler tracking of these spin-stabilized spacecraft was used to search for differential gravitational forces from a possible trans-Neptunian planet and to search for gravitational radiation. Future objectives of the Pioneer 10 and 11 missions are to continue measuring the large-scale properties of the heliosphere and to search for its boundary with interstellar space.

• Research Organization: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Moffett Field, CA (USA). Ames Research Center
• OSTI ID: 6966718
• Report Number(s): N-90-18355; NASA-TM--102269; A--90043; NAS--1.15:102269; CONF-8909329--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

640100* -- Astrophysics & Cosmology
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
ASTEROIDS
ATMOSPHERES
COSMIC RADIATION
DATA
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
GALAXIES
GRAVITATIONAL FIELDS
HELIOSPHERE
INFORMATION
IONIZING RADIATIONS
JUPITER PLANET
MAGNETIC FIELDS
MAIN SEQUENCE STARS
NUMERICAL DATA
PLANETS
RADIATION BELTS
RADIATIONS
SATELLITES
SATURN PLANET
SOLAR ATMOSPHERE
SOLAR CYCLE
SOLAR SYSTEM
STARS
SUN