Pioneer 10 & Pioneer 11: "Exploration of the Planets" pt1-2 1971 NASA

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• published: 06 Apr 2012
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more at http://scitech.quickfound.net/astro/planet_news.html Public domain film from the National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and mild video noise reduction applied. The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original). Split with MKVmerge GUI (part of MKVToolNix), the same software can recombine the downloaded parts (in mp4 format): http://www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkvtoolnix/doc/mkvmerge-gui.html part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9EL7ay4V4w http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_10 Pioneer 10 (also known as Pioneer F) is a 258-kilogram robotic space probe that completed the first interplanetary mission to Jupiter, and became the first spacecraft to achieve escape velocity from the Solar System. The project was managed by the NASA Ames Research Center and the contract for the construction of the spacecraft was awarded to TRW Inc. The spacecraft was assembled around a hexagonal bus with a 2.74 m parabolic dish high-gain antenna oriented along the spin axis. Power was supplied by four radioisotope thermoelectric generators that provided a combined 155 W at the start of the mission. Pioneer 10 was launched on March 2, 1972 by an Atlas-Centaur expendable vehicle from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Between July 15, 1972, and February 15, 1973, it became the first spacecraft to traverse the asteroid belt. Imaging of Jupiter began November 6, 1973, at a range of 25 million km, and a total of more than 500 images were transmitted. The closest approach to the planet was on December 4, 1973, at a range of 132,252 km. During the mission, the on-board instruments were used to study the asteroid belt, the environment around Jupiter, solar wind, cosmic rays, and eventually the far reaches of the solar system and heliosphere. Communication has been lost since January 23, 2003 because of power constraints, with the probe at a distance of 12 billion-kilometers (80 AU) from Earth... In the 1960s, American aerospace engineer Gary Flandro of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory conceived of a mission, known as the Planetary Grand Tour, that would exploit a rare alignment of the outer planets of the Solar System. To prepare for this mission, in 1964 NASA decided to launch a pair of probes to the outer Solar System. An advocacy group named the Outer Space Panel and chaired by American space scientist James A. Van Allen, worked out the scientific rationale for exploring the outer planets. Goddard put together a proposal for a pair of "Galactic Jupiter Probes" that would pass through the asteroid belt and visit Jupiter. These were to be launched in 1972 and 1973 during favorable windows that occurred only a few weeks every 13 months. Launch during other time intervals would have been more costly in terms of propellant requirements. Approved by NASA in February 1969, the twin spacecraft were designated Pioneer F and Pioneer G before launch; later they were named Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11. They formed part of the Pioneer program, a series of United States unmanned space missions launched between 1958 and 1978... The Pioneer 10 probe was launched on March 3, 1972 at 01:49:00 UTC (March 2 local time) by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration from Space Launch Complex 36A at Cape Canaveral, Florida aboard an Atlas/Centaur launch vehicle. The third stage consisted of a solid fuel TE364-4 developed specifically for the Pioneer missions... On November 6, 1973, the Pioneer 10 spacecraft was at a distance of 25 million km from Jupiter. Testing of the imaging system began... At the closest approach, the velocity of the spacecraft reached 132,000 km/h. The spacecraft came within 132,252 km of the outer atmosphere of Jupiter... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_11 Pioneer 11 (also known as Pioneer G) is a 259-kilogram (569 lb) robotic space probe launched by NASA on April 6, 1973 to study the asteroid belt, the environment around Jupiter and Saturn, solar wind, cosmic rays, and eventually the far reaches of the solar system and heliosphere. It was the first probe to encounter Saturn and the second to fly through the asteroid belt and by Jupiter. Due to power constraints and the vast distance of the probe, communication has been lost since November 30, 1995... During its closest approach, December 2, 1974, Pioneer 11 reached closest approach to Jupiter, passing 42,828 kilometers (26,612 mi) above the cloud tops... Pioneer 11 passed by Saturn on September 1, 1979, at a distance of 21,000 km from Saturn's cloud tops...