Monday, June 28, 2010

PIONEER - NASA's First Aircrafts

Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11, launched in 1972 and 1973, respectively, were the first spacecraft to visit the solar system's most photogenic gas giants, Jupiter and Saturn. Pioneer 10 was the first probe to travel through the solar system's asteroid belt, a field of orbiting rocks between Mars and Jupiter. Then about a year-and-a-half after its launch, the spacecraft made the first flyby of the planet Jupiter. It took stunning up-close photos of the Great Red Spot and the wide swaths of red that band the planet. About a year later, Pioneer 11 flew by Jupiter, and then moved on to Saturn, where it discovered a couple of previously unknown small moons around the planet, and a new ring. Both probes have stopped sending data, and are continuing out on their one-way voyages beyond the solar system.
Pioneer 0, 1, and 2 were the United States' first lunar attempts. These identical spacecraft, which all failed to meet their lunar objectives, were followed by Pioneer 3 and 4, which succeeded in becoming America's first successful lunar missions. Pioneer 5 provided the first maps of the interplanetary magnetic field. Pioneers 6,7,8, and 9 were the world's first solar monitoring network and provided warnings of increased solar activity which could affect Earth orbiting satellites and ground systems. The twin Pioneer 10 and 11 vehicles were the first spacecraft to ever visit Jupiter and Saturn. The craft performed a wide variety of scientific observations of the two planets and returned environmental data that was used during the design of the more sophisticated Voyager probes. The Pioneer Venus mission, consisting of the Pioneer Venus Orbiter (Pioneer 12) and Pioneer Venus Multiprobe (Pioneer 13), was the United States' first long-term mission to observe Venus and studied the structure and composition of the Venusian atmosphere. The mission also provided the first radar map of the planet's surface.
Below is the brief History of all PIONEER attempted to reach to space.

 Name  Int'l Desig.  Date  Site  Vehicle  Orbit  Mass(kg)
    Notes
 Pioneer 0 (Thor Able 1)    8/17/58  ESMC  Thor Able  FTO  38
    1st stage malfunction; 1st US lunar attempt
 Pioneer 1  1958-[Eta]1  10/11/58  ESMC  Thor Able  HEO  38
    Set distance record; failed to reach moon
 Pioneer 2  none  11/8/58  ESMC  Thor Able  FTO  39
    3rd stage ignition unsuccessful
 Pioneer 3  1958-[Theta]1  12/6/58  ESMC  Juno 2  HEO  6
    Failed to reach moon; provided radiation data
 Pioneer 4  1959-[Nu]1  3/3/59  ESMC  Juno 2  Solar  6
    Passed within 60000 km. of moon
 Pioneer 5  1960-[Alpha]1  3/11/60  ESMC  Thor Able  Solar  43
    Solar research
 Pioneer 6  1965-105A  12/16/65  ESMC  Delta E  Solar  63
    Measured solar wind, Sun's magnetic field
 Pioneer 7  1966-075A  8/17/66  ESMC  Delta E  Solar  63
    Monitored solar wind, cosmic rays
 Pioneer 8  1967-123A  12/13/67  ESMC  Delta E  Solar  63
    Solar radiation data
 Pioneer 9  1968-100A  11/8/68  ESMC  Delta E  Solar  63
    Solar radiation data
 Pioneer E  none  8/27/69  ESMC  Delta L  FTO  67
    1st stage hydraulics failure; destroyed by range safety
 Pioneer 10  1972-012A  3/3/72  ESMC  Atlas Centaur  SSET  259
    Jupiter flyby 12/73; 1st man-made object to leave solar system. Operations were discontinued on 3/31/97 because of power limitations. Spacecraft continues its voyage into deep space.
 Pioneer 11  1973-019A  4/6/73  ESMC  Atlas Centaur  SSET  259
    Jupiter flyby 12/74; Saturn flyby 9/1/79
 Pioneer 12  1978-051A  5/20/78  ESMC  Atlas Centaur  Venus  582
    Venus orbiter
 Pioneer 13  1978-078A  8/8/78  ESMC  Atlas Centaur  Venus  904
    Dropped 4 probes in Venus atmosphere 12/9/78; burned up in atmosphere on same day

1 comment:

Unknown said...

This is wonderful technology. Nasa is developed many thing. I really like his every technology.I surprised after reading your post. I work in Car towing service company. My friend shared every new technology with me. Because he is technical engineer.

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