Mission Atlas
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Mission record

Pioneer 0

Also known as Thor-Able 1, Able 1

Department of Defense · Launched

Explore trajectory

Failed · Failure

The first United States attempt to send a spacecraft to the Moon, lost when its Thor-Able launch vehicle failed shortly after liftoff.

Destinations
Launch vehicle
Thor-Able
Launch site
Cape Canaveral, United States
Countries
United States
Mission types
Orbiter

Chronology

Mission timeline

  1. Launch

    Launched; first-stage failure ended the flight

    NASA gives launch time as 12:18 UT and reports that the Thor first stage exploded 73.6 seconds after launch at about 15 km altitude. The archived NSSDCA page instead reports 77 seconds and 16 km; both sources establish first-stage failure before lunar departure. NASA reports telemetry for at least 123 seconds after breakup, but no complete post-breakup state history is available, so no moving trajectory is inferred.

    Earth

Mission architecture

Vehicles

  • Pioneer 0 · Spacecraft

    Destinations: Moon

Trajectory record

Trajectory dataset not yet available

Known dates and encounters do not uniquely determine a flight path. This mission’s sourced timeline is available above; no verified trajectory is currently published here.

What is needed to reconstruct this path?
  • A frame-qualified position and vector velocity at an epoch, or equivalent complete orbital elements.
  • Finer event-time constraints where required by an orbital reconstruction; the stored day/month/year precision is retained.
  • The actual failed-flight state history. Intended destinations are not evidence that the spacecraft reached them.

Provenance

Sources

Each source is listed once and labeled with the mission, event, trajectory, or destination/body context it supports.

Data verified through October 4, 2026