Happy 30th Birthday, Pioneer 10

tlon writes: "Pioneer 10, the spacecraft that brought us the first pictures of Jupiter, turned 30 today. Launched in 1972, the probe is now some 7.4 billion miles away, as it cruises out towards Aldebaran, the eye of Taurus. NASA will attempt to contact the spacecraft today, (it was successfully contacted last year), but the round trip time is over 22 hours. How's that for a ping latency? See Nasa's Pioneer 10 Page for more details."

Comments

Google Cache (karma whoring...)

[H0NGK0NGPH00EY]

Google Cache

Enjoy!

google cache

[SevenTowers]

here
and
here

Re:I have an idea

[cperciva]

Two major problems:

First, hardware fails occasionally. The probes would have to be able to send their signals back at least two hops in order to avoid having one failed probe "orphan" many others.

Second, the trajectories rely upon a particular alignment of planets. If we sent out probes year after year, they'd end up going in completely different directions.

Re:Lond distance comms

[Erazmus]

Check out The Speed of Light for a reference to the fact that light and other forms of electromagnetic radiation are the same thing, and therefore travel at the same speed.

Now, if they're travelling through different mediums, then their speed is different. An interesting chart showing the different speeds through different mediums can be found here.

Re:Lond distance comms

[Vishniac]

The biggest kink in any method of faster-than-light travel OR communication is not the actual method of locomotion (wormholes, hyperspace, warp drive, other dimensions, pixie dust) but the problem of causality and the unsolvable paradoxes that can be created with a faster-than-light signal that carries information (or the FTL courier ship carrying a message).

Check out the Relativity and FTL Travel FAQ for a better explanation than I can give. I for one hope that Einstein is wrong... the universe is so much more exciting in Star Wars.

Re:It's going where?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I realize the parent post should be modded funny, but I'll respond seriously anyway. _Aldebaran_, which is where it is pointed, is the bright red giant in Taurus (Alpha Tauri, for those of you who are astronomically inclined).

Re:Now that is engineering

[Ivan Raikov]

Actually, I seem to remember reading that Pioneer 10 didn't have on-board computers[...]

Well, what do you know. According to Intel, the Pioneer 10 had a 4004 on board. Neat. So, as the old joke goes, in 1972 it took an Intel 4004 to operate a deep-space probe. In 2002, it takes a GHz PIII to run Windows. Things have gone terribly wrong.

Re:Ping.

[limber]

They appear to have contacted Pioneer! Here's a short article on it.

"The signal was loud and clear and I'd like to say this contact worked like a charm," said Larry Lasher, the mission's project manager.

A radio telescope in Spain received the response 22 hours and six minutes after the signal was sent from us on friday.

Cool!

Gravity Mystery

[Tablizer]

Pioneer 10 is part of a Gravity Mystery that is yet to be solved. A story about it:

http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/space/05/21/gravity.m ystery/

Gravity still stumps physicists like almost nothing else. This may be a hint for a new breakthru in our understanding of gravity.

Contact made!

[Gogo Dodo]

Pioneer 10 has responded!

UPDATE 12:05EST - CONTACT MADE

[crumbz]

Just saw on CNN that contact was made via a radio telescope just east of Los Angeles.

Re:Lond distance comms

[Anonymous Coward]

This means that radio transmissions are slower than light transmissions

You really should say "visible light".