NASA Contacts Pioneer 10 Spacecraft

AP ^ | 3 Mar 02 | ERICA WERNER

[RightWhale]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=533&u=/ap/20020303/ap_on_sc/spacecraft_contact_1

NASA Contacts Pioneer 10 Spacecraft

Sat Mar 2, 9:45 PM ET

By ERICA WERNER, Associated Press Writer

LOS ANGELES - NASA successfully bridged 7.4 billion miles of space to contact the Pioneer 10 spacecraft on the 30th anniversary of its launch, mission managers said Saturday.

Scientists beamed a message to the craft Friday from a radio telescope in the desert east of Los Angeles. A radio telescope in Spain received the response 22 hours and six minutes later, said Larry Lasher, the mission's project manager.

"The signal was loud and clear, and I'd like to say this contact worked like a charm," Lasher said. NASA last heard from the craft in July.

Pioneer 10's original, 21-month mission has improbably stretched three decades. The spacecraft was launched March 2, 1972.

It passed through the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter and obtained close-up images of Jupiter. In 1983, it became the first manmade object to leave the solar system when it passed the orbit of distant Pluto.

Pioneer 10 is now in galactic orbit, twice as far from Earth as Pluto. It is traveling at 27,380 mph relative to the sun, and is in line to reach Aldebaran, the red star that forms the eye of the constellation Taurus. But it won't get there for about 2 million years.

Lasher said the clarity of the signal Saturday gave him hope of remaining in touch with the craft for another year.

[RightWhale]

30 years and still going. Maybe it is in galactic orbit, but it is only 10 light hours out from the sun. The next nearest star is about 4 light years away. It's not even 0.0001 the way to the next star if it were headed that direction, which it isn't. If this were scaled to normal, it would be like driving to work and you are still on your front porch looking for your car keys in whichever pocket they might be.

[Paul C. Jesup]

If this were scaled to normal, it would be like driving to work and you are still on your front porch looking for your car keys in whichever pocket they might be.

Well at least we are out the front door. That's a good start.

[Reaganesque]

It is traveling at 27,380 mph relative to the sun, and is in line to reach Aldebaran, the red star that forms the eye of the constellation Taurus. But it won't get there for about 2 million years.

Taking the scenic route, eh?

[RightWhale]

I think Pioneer is actually not the farthest out spacecraft. There were 2 others that also used the gravity slingshot to the outer planets since then, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 and they are moving faster. One or both could be farther by now.

And of course there are the ball bearings that were fired from space guns to sun escape speed in the 50s or early 60s. That experiment was a lame concept.

[tet68]

Go,Go,Go,Man,they did it again,awesome!!!

[jimtorr]

The Voyagers (or Veeger, for Star Trek fans) may be farther away, but I don't think that we're still in contact with them. Of course, even Pioneer is only able to reply that it's still "alive".

[RightWhale]

loud and clear

I wonder how much of an antenna one would need. A big dish is a little beyond my means.

[strela]

NASA successfully bridged 7.4 billion miles of space to contact the Pioneer 10 spacecraft on the 30th anniversary of its launch

No wonder NASA's having such horrific budget problems. Their monthly long-distance bill must be a shocker!

Seriously, this is pretty impressive (considering that receiving the weak output from Pioneer's transmitter is probably akin to locating one particular grain of sand on a beach).

[RadioAstronomer]

They used the same dishes we did for our mission, which is apart of the DSN (Deep Space Network). The 70-meter antenna at Goldstone and the dish in Madrid Spain. The third site is in Australia.

[RightWhale]

Pioneer 10 is apparently still collecting radiation data. Its power supply, a nuke BTW, still operates, unlike Pioneer 11 which quit.

[RadioAstronomer]

To recieve the "video" from Voyager's Neptune encounter, JPL used a process called VLBI (Very Long Baseline Interferometry). In a nutshell multiple antennas due to the faint signal from so far away. Since Pioneer is only basically a low bit rate ping, a VLBI process is not required.

[patton]

Of course, it is slowing down.

Why, I wonder, would that be?

[The Great RJ]

Ironic that when this spacecraft was launched the environmentalist crowd was telling us that we all be long dead from global cooling and over population long before this spacecraft ever got this far.

[RadioAstronomer]

Its power supply, a nuke BTW

It uses what is called an RTG (Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator). What that means is that a low yield alpha source (plutonium) strikes a scintillator which emits a photon and thusly a solar cell. We had one of those on Galileo.

[RightWhale]

Its out about 78 AU now, and the limit for contact is about 80 AU, so it won't be in touch much longer.

[strela]

What is the half-life of the substance powering Pioneer? At what distance will the craft be so far away that it will be impossible to receive a signal from it (even assuming that it still has power)?

[RadioAstronomer]

ping. :)

[strela]

And I just saw your reply in Post 16 ... never mind :)

[RadioAstronomer]

What is the half-life of the substance powering Pioneer?

24,100 years