Pioneer 10 spacecraft falls silent after nearly 31 years

Associated Press | February 25, 2003

[HAL9000]

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Pioneer 10, the first spacecraft to venture out of the solar system, has fallen silent after traveling billions of miles from Earth on a mission that has lasted nearly 31 years, NASA said Tuesday.

What was apparently the spacecraft's last signal was received Jan. 22 by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Deep Space Network. At the time, Pioneer 10 was 7.6 billion miles from Earth; the signal, traveling at the speed of light, took 11 hours and 20 minutes to arrive.

The signal and the two previous signals were very faint. The Deep Space Network heard nothing from Pioneer 10 during a final attempt at contact on Feb. 7. No more attempts are planned.

Pioneer 10 was launched March 2, 1972, on a 21-month mission. It became the first spacecraft to pass through the asteroid belt and the first to obtain 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.

Although Pioneer 10's mission officially ended in 1997, scientists continued to track the TRW Inc.-built spacecraft as part of a study of communication technology for NASA's future Interstellar Probe mission. Pioneer 10 hasn't relayed telemetry data since April 27.

"It was a workhorse that far exceeded its warranty, and I guess you could say we got our money's worth," said Larry Lasher, Pioneer 10 project manager at NASA's Ames Research Center.

Pioneer 10 carries a gold plaque engraved with a message of goodwill and a map showing the Earth's location in the solar system. The spacecraft continues to coast toward the star Aldebaran in the constellation Taurus. It will take 2 million years to reach it.

On the Net:

Pioneer 10: spaceprojects.arc.nasa.gov/Space_Projects/pioneer/PNhome.html

[SamAdams76]

Hopefully we can send somebody out there to find out just what the heck happened.

[AppyPappy]

Figures. It owed me $20.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

It will eventually be displayed in the Smithsonian after it's retrieved.

[Jhoffa_]

Wow..

This is so captivating.. It's romantic in a way.

It's mind blowing to think of voyager as traveling across space for millions of years.. gliding by all the cold and uninhabited worlds out there.

[Jhoffa_]

LOL!

[joey'smom]

Darn! With all the things we really need to fall silent, why this?

[Will]

Actually, it won't get to the first of the cold, uninhabited worlds for 2 million years. Maybe a few hundred million more after that it may encounter the next and so on and so on and....

[billorites]

"Pioneer 10....has fallen silent after traveling billions of miles from Earth on a mission that has lasted nearly 31 years."

If you returned it to L.L. Bean's, they'd probably replace it for free.

[Nick Danger]

Hopefully we can send somebody out there to find out just what the heck happened.

I'll go. I haven't been outside the solar system in ages. This place is getting boring anyway. I thought Hawking was going to figure it out, but now he's going down the wrong path too. There's nuthin' gonna happen here for a while.

[MrsEmmaPeel]

The data rate of the old Pioneer spacecraft is something like 1 byte/second. I was at JPL (test engineer) when the big upgrade to the data rate in the gigabytes/second range came with Magellan. Back then ground stations could track Pioneer with a signal as weak as one-billionth of a watt. Back then everyone was saying Pioneer was dead, and what was the point of tracking it.... "Job security" others would answer.

[Bogey78O]

Captain Klaa will find it soon enough.....

[Texas_Jarhead]

that was a long run... I agree, we got our money's worth

[Libertarianize the GOP]

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/bump-list

[al baby]

Vio con Dios Senor Diaz

[#3Fan]

It's getting pretty close to Nibiru now. Nibiru's electromagnetics must've fried it. :^)

[Senator Pardek]

Pioneer 10 spacecraft falls silent after nearly 31 years

It's not silent - we just can't hear it...

[TheLurkerX]

In 2 million years, some yokel's gonna have what looks like a giant microwave crash through the roof of his trailer pod, and his insurance won't cover it, because it's an act of the Gods. He'll take the plaque on TV and tell everyone how weird blockheaded aliens tried to stick it in his butt, and all the talk shows will make fun of him. Eventually, it'll be displayed in somebody else's version of the little Ale 'E Inn.

[snopercod]

By God, the engineers who designed the Pioneer spacecraft were giants. Will somebody please post the image of the plaque it carried?

[Brett66]

There are a large number of uncharted Kuiper belt objects that it could pass. Probably won't be passing the Vulcan's home world for a while though. :)