Пионер-10: Первый полёт к Юпитеру и за пределы Солнечной системы.

NASA space probe launched in March 1972

Pioneer 10 (originally designated Pioneer F) is a NASA space probe launched in 1972 that completed the first mission to the planet Jupiter. Pioneer 10 became the first of five planetary probes and 11 artificial objects to achieve the escape velocity needed to leave the Solar System. This space exploration project was conducted by the NASA Ames Research Center in California. The space probe was manufactured by TRW Inc.

Pioneer 10 was assembled around a hexagonal bus with a diameter parabolic dish high gain antenna, and the spacecraft was spin stabilized around the axis of the antenna. Its electric power was supplied by four radioisotope thermoelectric generators that provided a combined 155 watts at launch. It was launched on March 3, 1972, at 01:49:00 UTC (March 2 local time), by an Atlas Centaur rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Between July 15, 1972, and February 15, 1973, it became the first spacecraft to traverse the asteroid belt. Photography of Jupiter began on November 6, 1973, at a range of , and about 500 images were transmitted. The closest approach to the planet was on December 3, 1973, at a range of During the mission, the on board instruments were used to study the asteroid belt, the environment around Jupiter, the solar wind, cosmic rays, and eventually the far reaches of the Solar System and heliosphere. To meet the schedule, the first launch would need to take place between February 29 and March 17 so that it could arrive at Jupiter in November 1974. This was later revised to an arrival date of December 1973 in order to avoid conflicts with other missions over the use of the Deep Space Network for communications, and to miss the period when Earth and Jupiter would be at opposite sides of the Sun. The encounter trajectory for Pioneer 10 was selected to maximize the information returned about the radiation environment around Jupiter, even if this caused damage to some systems. It would come within about three times the radius of the planet, which was thought to be the closest it could approach and still survive the radiation. The trajectory chosen would give the spacecraft a good view of the sunlit side.

The Pioneer 10 bus measures deep and with six long panels forming the hexagonal structure. The bus houses propellant to control the orientation of the probe and eight of the eleven scientific instruments. The equipment compartment lay within an aluminum honeycomb structure to provide protection from meteoroids. A layer of insulation, consisting of aluminized mylar and kapton blankets, provides passive thermal control. Heat was generated by the dissipation of 70 to 120 watts (W) from the electrical components inside the compartment. The heat range was maintained within the operating limits of the equipment by means of louvers located below the mounting platform. hydrazine thrusters mounted in three pairs. Pair one maintained a constant spin rate of 4.8 rpm, pair two controlled the forward thrust, and pair three controlled the attitude. The attitude pair were used in conical scanning maneuvers to track Earth in its orbit. Orientation information was also provided by a star sensor able to reference Canopus, and two Sun sensors.

Pioneer 10 was launched on March 3, 1972, at 01:49:00 UTC (8:49 p. m. Eastern Standard Time on March 2) by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration from Space Launch Complex 36A in Florida, aboard an Atlas Centaur. The third stage of the expendable vehicle consisted of a solid fuel Star 37E stage (TE M 364 4) developed specifically for the Pioneer missions. This stage provided about of thrust and spun up the spacecraft. The spacecraft had an initial spin rate of 30 rpm. Twenty minutes following the launch, the vehicle's three booms were extended, which slowed the rotation rate to 4.8 rpm. This rate was maintained throughout the voyage. The launch vehicle accelerated the probe for a net interval of 17 minutes, reaching a velocity of
After the high gain antenna was contacted, several of the instruments were activated for testing while the spacecraft was moving through the Earth's radiation belts. Ninety minutes after launch, the spacecraft reached interplanetary space. Pioneer 10 passed by the Moon in 11 hours and became the fastest human made object at that time. Two days after launch, the scientific instruments were turned on, beginning with the cosmic ray telescope. After ten days, all of the instruments were active. During the first seven months of the journey, the spacecraft made three course corrections. The on board instruments underwent checkouts, with the photometers examining Jupiter and the Zodiacal light, and experiment packages being used to measure cosmic rays, magnetic fields and the solar wind. The only anomaly during this interval was the failure of the Canopus sensor, which instead required the spacecraft to maintain its orientation using the two Sun sensors. While passing through interplanetary medium, Pioneer 10 became the first mission to detect interplanetary atoms of helium. It also observed high energy ions of aluminum and sodium in the solar wind. The spacecraft recorded important heliophysics data in early August 1972 by registering a solar shock wave when it was at a distance of On July 15, 1972, Pioneer 10 was the first spacecraft to enter the asteroid belt, located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The project planners expected a safe passage through the belt, and the closest the trajectory would take the spacecraft to any of the known asteroids was One of the nearest approaches was to the asteroid 307 Nike on December 2, 1972. The on board experiments demonstrated a deficiency of particles below a micrometer (μm) in the belt, as compared to the vicinity of the Earth. The density of dust particles between 10 and 100 μm did not vary significantly during the trip from the Earth to the outer edge of the belt. Only for particles with a diameter of 100 μm to 1.0 mm did the density show an increase, by a factor of three in the region of the belt. No fragments larger than a millimeter were observed in the belt, indicating these are likely rare; certainly much less common than anticipated. As the spacecraft did not collide with any particles of substantial size, it passed safely through the belt, emerging on the other side about February 15, 1973. The level of radiation at Jupiter was ten times more powerful than Pioneer's designers had predicted, leading to fears that the probe would not survive. Starting on December 3, the radiation around Jupiter caused false commands to be generated. Most of these were corrected by contingency commands, but an image of Io and a few close ups of Jupiter were lost. Similar false commands would be generated on the way out from the planet. Nonetheless, Pioneer 10 did succeed in obtaining images of the moons Ganymede and Europa. The image of Ganymede showed low albedo features in the center and near the south pole, while the north pole appeared brighter. Europa was too far away to obtain a detailed image, although some albedo features were apparent. The trajectory of Pioneer 10 was chosen to take it behind Io, allowing the refractive effect of the moon's atmosphere on the radio transmissions to be measured. This demonstrated that the ionosphere of the moon was about above the surface of the day side, and the density ranged from 60,000 electrons per cubic centimeter on the dayside to 9,000 electrons per cubic centimeter on the night face. An unexpected discovery was that Io was orbiting within a cloud of hydrogen that extended for about , with a width and height of A smaller, cloud was believed to have been detected near Europa. It was not until after Pioneer 10 had cleared the asteroid belt that NASA selected a trajectory towards Jupiter which included a slingshot effect to send the spacecraft out of the Solar System. Pioneer 10 was the first spacecraft to attempt such a maneuver, a model for future missions. Such an extended mission was not in the initial proposal, but was planned for prior to launch. At the closest approach, the velocity of the spacecraft reached , and it came within of the outer atmosphere of Jupiter. Close up images of the Great Red Spot and the terminator were obtained. Communication with the spacecraft then ceased as it passed behind the planet. The radio occultation data allowed the temperature structure of the outer atmosphere to be measured, showing a temperature inversion between the altitudes with 10 and 100 mbar pressures. Temperatures at the 10 mbar level ranged from , while temperatures at the 100 mbar level were The spacecraft generated an infrared map of the planet, which confirmed the idea that the planet radiated more heat than it received from the Sun. Crescent images of the planet were then returned as Pioneer 10 moved away from the planet. As the spacecraft headed outward, it again passed the bow shock of Jupiter's magnetosphere. As this front is constantly shifting in space because of dynamic interaction with the solar wind, the vehicle crossed the bow shock a total of 17 times before it escaped completely.

On July 18, 2023, Voyager 2 overtook Pioneer 10, making Pioneer 10 the third farthest spacecraft from the Sun after Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. If left undisturbed, Pioneer 10 and its sister craft Pioneer 11 will join the two Voyager spacecraft and the New Horizons spacecraft in leaving the Solar System to wander the interstellar medium. The Pioneer 10 trajectory is expected to take it in the general direction of the star Aldebaran, currently located at a distance of about 68 light years. If Aldebaran had zero relative velocity, it would require more than two million years for the spacecraft to reach it. This is the closest stellar flyby in the next few million years of all the Pioneer, Voyager, and New Horizons spacecraft, which are leaving the Solar System. A backup unit, Pioneer H, is currently on display in the "Milestones of Flight" gallery at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D. C. The plaque is attached to the antenna support struts where it would be shielded from interstellar dust.

In the film Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, a Klingon Bird of Prey destroys Pioneer 10 as target practice. In the serialized speculative fiction multimedia narrative 17776, one of the main characters is a sentient Pioneer 10.