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Mission record

Pioneer 10

Also known as Pioneer-F, Pioneer10

NASA · Launched

Explore trajectory

Completed · Success

NASA's Pioneer 10 was the first mission to be sent to the outer solar system and the first to investigate the planet Jupiter, reaching approximately 2.8 Jovian radii from the planet on 04 December 1973 and then following an escape trajectory from the solar system; its signal was last detected on 23 January 2003.

Destinations
Launch vehicle
Atlas-Centaur
Launch site
Cape Canaveral, United States
Countries
United States
Mission types
Flyby

Chronology

Mission timeline

  1. Launch

    Pioneer 10 launched

    NASA's mission page gives a launch time of 01:49:04 UT; the NSSDCA orbital page prints 01:49:00 UTC, while NASA Ames trajectory data give 01:49:03.6. The catalog uses the NASA mission-page second, consistent with the native trajectory time rounded to a second, and preserves the NSSDCA discrepancy.

    Earth

  2. Milestone

    First course correction

    NASA's mission history dates Pioneer 10's first course correction to March 7, 1972. The source supplies a date but no time.

    Sun

  3. Milestone

    Course correction for Io occultation

    NASA's mission history dates the second course correction to March 26, 1972, and says it ensured an occultation experiment with Jupiter's moon Io. The source supplies a date but no time.

    Sun

  4. Flyby

    First spacecraft to investigate the planet Jupiter

    The NAIF Pioneer 10 SPK reconstruction gives closest approach at 1973-12-04T02:25:24Z and a center range of 203,122 km. NSSDCA gives 02:25 UT and about 200,000 km from Jupiter's center; NASA's mission history gives 02:26 UT and 81,000 miles (130,354 km) above the cloud tops, consistent with a center distance near 200,000 km. The NSSDCA orbital table labels its closest-approach distance unit as AU; that unit label is inconsistent with the accompanying description and the reported distance. The NAIF SPK identifies its reconstruction pedigree as uncertain, so its second-level timestamp is source precision, not a claim of equivalent navigation accuracy. The Pioneer 11 citation documents the unit comparison and does not supply Pioneer 10 navigation.

    Jupiter

  5. Milestone

    Routine tracking and project data processing terminated

    Routine tracking and project data processing operatations were terminated on 31 March 1997 for budget reasons.

  6. Milestone

    Last successful data acquisition through the Deep Space Network

    The last successful data acquisitions through NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN) occurred on 03 March 2002, the 30th anniversary of Pioneer 10's launch date, and on 27 April 2002.

  7. Loss of contact

    Spacecraft signal last detected

    The spacecraft signal was last detected on 23 January 2003 after an uplink was transmitted to turn off the last operational experiment, the Geiger Tube Telescope (GTT), but lock-on to the sub-carrier signal for data downlink was not achieved.

  8. Milestone

    Unsuccessful February2003 contact attempt

    No signal at all was detected during a final attempt on 06-07 February 2003. Pioneer Project staff at NASA Ames then concluded that the spacecraft power level had fallen below that needed to power the onboard transmitter, so no further attempts would be made. The page prints a two-day range, so this event is recorded at month precision.

  9. Milestone

    Later final recovery attempt failed

    NASA's mission history dates the final failed attempt to contact Pioneer 10 to March 4, 2006. NASA's 2003 last-signal article describes the attempt window as March 3–5, 2006; the mission page's date is retained at day precision.

    Sun

Mission architecture

Vehicles

  • Pioneer 10 · Spacecraft · The spacecraft signal was last detected on 23 January 2003

    Destinations: Jupiter

Trajectory record

Time-dependent navigation trajectory

Source states place the model at the selected time. Reconstructed flight, estimates, predictions and historical mission plans are identified by interval; gaps remain visible.

J2000 · Sun-centered display · positions interpolated between source states

Coverage: March 3, 1972 to January 23, 2003

Source records and sampling assumptions are retained with the repository data. Model attitude and surface appearance are illustrative.

  • Pioneer 10: Physically reconstructed based on publicly available data from JPL Horizons solution pioneer_10_merged (ICRF stored in the runtime J2000 frame). The source cautions against high-precision or tracking use; navigation covariance is absent. · March 3, 1972 to January 23, 2003

Provenance

Sources

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

Data verified through October 12, 2026