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Happy 30th Birthday, Pioneer 10

Posted by timothy on from the not-yet-over-the-hill dept.

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."

6 of 170 comments (clear)

  1. Google Cache (karma whoring...) by H0NGK0NGPH00EY · · Score: 3, Informative

    Google Cache

    Enjoy!

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  2. google cache by SevenTowers · · Score: 5, Informative

    here
    and
    here

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    Imperium et libertas
    Autocracy and freedom
  3. Re:I have an idea by cperciva · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

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    Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
  4. Re:Now that is engineering by Ivan+Raikov · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

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  5. Contact made! by Gogo+Dodo · · Score: 5, Informative

    Pioneer 10 has responded!

  6. UPDATE 12:05EST - CONTACT MADE by crumbz · · Score: 3, Informative

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