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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."

8 of 170 comments (clear)

  1. Now that is engineering by ColGraff · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If they do actually manage to contact the probe, that would be very, very cool. They don't build 'em like this anymore, gentlemen - all you need to do to see that is look at the Mars probes. What's really goofy is how now, one of the farthest man-made objects from Earth is completely, mind-bogglingly obsolete from a computing standpoint.

    --
    I'm the stranger...posting to /.
  2. google cache by SevenTowers · · Score: 5, Informative

    here
    and
    here

    --
    Imperium et libertas
    Autocracy and freedom
  3. talk about clear reception.. by supernova87a · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The amazing thing is that the satellite is sending out a signal with as much power as maybe a watch battery, and we're receiving it from over 10^9 km away...

    Of course, the receiving dish is as big as a football field, but still.

  4. pioneer 10. by The+Hollow+Room · · Score: 5, Funny

    why contact it? Whats it going to say? Still dark. Still dark. Still dark.

  5. The reverse may apply, too by Rob+Cebollero · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Imagine if one day we *do* see an extraterrestrial probe land here. As far advanced as it will appear to us, it may only be an ancient relic of its creating civilisation.

    --
    Decentralization: the brief interval between the decline of one centralized regime and rise of another.
  6. 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.

    --
    Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
  7. Re:It's going where? by toxcspdrmn · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yes - but we only found out about that in 1977 - 5 years after Pioneer was launched.

    --
    "E pur si muove!" - attributed to Galileo Galilei, 1564-1642
  8. Contact made! by Gogo+Dodo · · Score: 5, Informative

    Pioneer 10 has responded!