The first visitor to Jupiter
Pioneer 10
Pioneer 10 launched on 3 March 1972 and became the first spacecraft to cross the asteroid belt and the first to fly past Jupiter, in December 1973.
It kept transmitting for three decades as it headed out of the Solar System. Its last faint signal was received in January 2003; today its position is calculated rather than measured.
Key facts
- Agency
- NASA
- Launched
- 1972-03-03
- Launch vehicle
- Atlas–Centaur
- Power
- Radioisotope thermoelectric generators
- Mission type
- Flyby
- Last contact
- January 2003
- Status
- Silent since 2003 — position is predicted
Where it is now
Loading live position from NASA/JPL Horizons…
Drifting towards the star Aldebaran, which it would pass in about 2 million years.
Mission objectives
Pioneer 10 was a pathfinder: it showed that a spacecraft could survive the asteroid belt and Jupiter's radiation, and it made the first close-up measurements of the giant planet.
The spacecraft
A 2.7 m dish antenna dominated the spin-stabilised spacecraft, which was powered by radioisotope generators.
The Pioneer plaque
It carries a gold-anodised aluminium plaque designed by Carl Sagan and Frank Drake, with artwork by Linda Salzman Sagan, showing a man and a woman and the location of the Sun — a message for anyone who might find it.
Discoveries and highlights
It returned the first close-up images of Jupiter and measured the planet's intense radiation belts and magnetic field, information that shaped the design of the Voyager spacecraft.
Route and timeline
- 1972-03-03Launch, Cape Canaveral
- 1973-12-03Jupiter flyby
- 2003-01-23Last signal received
Surprising facts about Pioneer 10
- Pioneer 10 was the most distant human-made object until Voyager 1 overtook it in 1998.
- It is heading in the general direction of the star Aldebaran.
- Tiny unexplained deviations in its motion, the 'Pioneer anomaly', were later traced to heat radiating from the spacecraft itself.