NASA Contacts Pioneer 10 Spacecraft

AP ^ | 3 Mar 02 | ERICA WERNER

[SunkenCiv]

http://spaceprojects.arc.nasa.gov/Space_Projects/pioneer/PNhome.html

"After more than 30 years, it appears the venerable Pioneer 10 spacecraft has sent its last signal to Earth. Pioneer's last, very weak signal was received on 23 January 2003. NASA engineers report that Pioneer 10's radioisotope power source has decayed, and it may not have enough power to send additional transmissions to Earth. NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN) did not detect a signal during the last contact attempt on 7 February 2003. The previous three contacts, including the 23 January signal, were very faint, with no telemetry received. The last time a Pioneer 10 contact returned telemetry data was 27 April 2002. NASA has no additional contact attempts planned for Pioneer 10... The power source on Pioneer 10 finally degraded to the point where the signal to Earth dropped below the threshold for detection in its latest contact attempt on 7 February, 2003. Pioneer 10 will continue to coast silently as a ghost ship through deep space into interstellar space, heading generally for the red star Aldebaran, which forms the eye of Taurus (The Bull). Aldebaran is about 68 light years away and it will take Pioneer over 2 million years to reach it.

"Launched on 5 April 1973, Pioneer 11 followed its sister ship to Jupiter (1974), made the first direct observations of Saturn (1979) and studied energetic particles in the outer heliosphere. The Pioneer 11 Mission ended on 30 September 1995, when the last transmission from the spacecraft was received. There have been no communications with Pioneer 11 since. The Earth's motion has carried it out of the view of the spacecraft antenna. The spacecraft cannot be maneuvered to point back at the Earth. It is not known whether the spacecraft is still transmitting a signal. No further tracks of Pioneer 11 are scheduled. The spacecraft is headed toward the constellation of Aquila (The Eagle), Northwest of the constellation of Sagittarius. Pioneer 11 will pass near one of the stars in the constellation in about 4 million years."

[RightWhale]

I rarely start threads anymore. Retired, you know. But, the Mars orbiter is due to begin its orbit insertion Friday and with the 1/3 success rate with these kinds of attempts it might be interesting to have a live thread. The main event is apparently going to be around noon Friday Alaska time.

[SunkenCiv]

I'm in.

[RightWhale]

There is a MRO orbital insertion thread already, but it doesn't say "Live Thread". Maybe the admin can add that to the title.

[KevinDavis]

[wyattearp]

We should launch a relay satellite (if that's possible), just to keep in touch with it.

[HP8753]

Where Pioneer 10 & 11,Voyager 1 & 2 are now.

[Zuben Elgenubi]

22 hours and six minutes ping.

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

The technology probably is already attainable -- it's a question of who would want to be sent into outer space in a little craft to be sailing for decades and never come home again?

Could give a Muslim a suicide belt and tell him there's a Jew on Alpha Centauri...