----- Original Message ----- From: Larry Kellogg Sent: Tuesday, December 02, 2003 11:49 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [lunar-update] 3 December 1973, Pioneer 10 made its closest encounter to Jupiter Good evening, to you on the lunar-update list and those I Blind Copied. - LRK -
Larry Kellogg here, Larry Klaes reminds us, and Larry Lasher has updated to say,
It was thirty years ago on 3 December 1973 that Pioneer 10 went by Jupiter. This was before all those other spacecraft made it there. :-) - LRK -
-------------------------------------------------------------- Hi Larry, (Lasher, Kellogg)
I was just wondering if there would be some kind of notice/tribute to the 30th anniversary of the Pioneer 10 probe being the first one to fly by the planet Jupiter on December 3, 1973? On the Web site or via an Ames release?
http://history.nasa.gov/SP-349/ch5.htm
Please let me know, thanks!
Larry (Klaes)
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You really want to go check out the chapter 5 page on the URL above. Pictures of those on the mission when there hair was black and a lot of information. - LRK -
---------------- snip At the beginning of November 1973, controllers entered the busiest activity period connected with Pioneer 10. They readied the spacecraft for its time of closest approach with Jupiter. early in December. By November 6, long range imaging tests commenced on the planet at a distance of 25 million km (15.5 million miles) And Pioneer 10 crossed the orbit of Jupiter's outermost satellite Hades, on November 8. Controllers were now in the process of starting the sequence of sending some 16,000 commands to the spacecraft to direct all the various scientific experiments and the spacecraft for the 60-day encounter period during which Pioneer 10 made its close passage to within 130,354 km (81,000 miles) of Jupiter's cloud tops on December 3, 1973. snip
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Have you ever gone to some place new for the first time and weren't sure just when you would arrive? - LRK -
---------------- snip The spacecraft had, however, speeded up slightly over its anticipated course and was to arrive at Jupiter one minute earlier than previously calculated. This arose because Jupiter turned out to be slightly heavier than calculated from Earth-based observations. snip
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============================================================== http://spaceprojects.arc.nasa.gov/Space_Projects/pioneer/PNStat.html PIONEER MISSIONS Pioneer 10 distance from Sun : 84.33 AU Speed relative to the Sun: 12.199 km/sec (27,290 mph) Distance from Earth: 12.47 billion kilometers (7.75 billion miles) (Round-trip Light Time = 23 hours 7 minutes)
Thirty years ago today on 3 December 1973, Pioneer 10 made its closest encounter to Jupiter passing within 81,000 miles of the cloud tops. This historic event marked humans' first approach to Jupiter and opened the way for exploration of the outer solar system - for Voyager to tour the outer planets, for Ulysses to break out of the ecliptic, for Galileo to investigate Jupiter and its satellites, and for Cassini to go to Saturn and probe Titan. During its Jupiter encounter, Pioneer 10 imaged the planet and its moons, and took measurements of Jupiter's magnetosphere, radiation belts, magnetic field, atmosphere, and interior. These measurements of the intense radiation environment near Jupiter were crucial in designing the Voyager and Galileo spacecraft. snip ==============================================================
Viktor Toth in Canada has graciously put up some images from snaps we took of my Pioneer 10 Telemetry display as they were shown on a Mac Quadra 950 back in March, April of 2002.
The programs had been running since 1993 and now the room is bare as it is getting rugs for the new Kepler mission. Move over for the new kid. :-) - LRK -
http://www.vttoth.com/Pioneer/April2702%20Track/lts042702.gif see the rest here. - LRK - http://www.vttoth.com/Pioneer/ScreenShots.htm
(See also Viktor's Deep Space Probe page. http://www.vttoth.com/probes/probes.asp ) - LRK -
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If you would like to see what the spacecraft had for data back in 1973 you might want to enter some requests at the COHOWeb Data Explorer - Exploring Pioneer 10 Data http://lewes.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/cohoweb/selector1.pl?spacecraft=p10
Enter a start and stop date, check what data you want, and click on submit. Default is a plot of your data request.
---------- COHOWeb http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/cohoweb/cw.html Deep space hourly merged magnetic field, plasma, and ephemerides data. ----------
---------- NSSDC: Pioneer 10/11 Project Information http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/pioneer10-11.html Pioneer 10/11 Project Information
Pioneer 10 and 11 were the first in the Pioneer series of spacecraft to fly by a planet, specifically Jupiter (both) and Saturn (Pioneer 11). Like their forerunners in the Pioneer series, they were also designed to make studies of the solar wind and interplanetary medium. Further information about each individual mission is available below. snip ----------
---------- Dr. J. A. Van Allen's Geiger Tube Telescope was the last instrument working on Pioneer 10. - LRK - http://www-pw.physics.uiowa.edu/pioneer/home.html The two companion spacecraft Pioneers 10 and 11 were launched in 1972 and 1973, respectively. They passed through the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter without damage, made the first-ever investigations at close range of the great outer planets Jupiter and Saturn and are now on escape trajectories out of the solar system. snip ----------
It has been most enjoyable watching the old bird fly, even though I count myself a newcomer to the Pioneer missions, having walked around the runway from VP-9 to Bendix Field Engineering in 1983. - LRK -
I hope you all have as much fun looking up.
Next month we will have more to look for.
The Mars Exploration Rovers are in the news. http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mer/
Larry Kellogg http://radio.weblogs.com/0119030/stories/
============================================================== WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK ==============================================================
Thanks for looking up.
If you know of someone that would like to look up with you, and join the lunar-update list, have them send an e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] In the body of their message, put: subscribe lunar-update or just have them drop me a line and I will add them.
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Larry
http://radio.weblogs.com/0119030/ http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/ http://www.larryrussellkellogg.net/
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