On 22 January 2003, when Pioneer 10’s signal was last detected, the spacecraft had travelled 82 AU (7.6 billion miles) from Earth, more than twice the distance from the Sun to Pluto. Pioneer 10 was launched on March 2, 1972 on a 21-month mission on a three-stage Atlas-Centaur rocket on a direct launch to Planet Jupiter (with no parking in Earth orbit). Pioneer 10 is at X = 20.20555952591098, Y = 103.0787009941465, Z = 5.518678391953462. It is 105.183137647811 AU's from the sun. Pioneer 10 was launched on March 2, 1972, from Cape Kennedy aboard an Atlas Centaur rocket. But, says delighted Pioneer 10 project manager Larry Lasher at NASA/Ames, "Pioneer 10 lives on!" Pioneer 10 was the first spacecraft to pass through the asteroid belt, the first spacecraft to flyby Jupiter in 1973 and the first to obtain close-up images of Jupiter and the first to visit the outer solar system. F or a space probe that’s at least two decades beyond its sell-by date, Voyager 1 has a pretty impressive record of keeping itself in the news. In 1973, NASA launched Pioneer 11, providing scientists with their closest view of Jupiter, from 26,600 miles above the cloud tops in December 1974.
At the time it was the fastest spacecraft ever to leave Earth. Before Pioneer probes went completely silent on us, SETI used to use Pioneer 10 as a test target during their Phoenix Project, serving as a good approximation target for an ETI signal. Closest approach of Pioneer 10 to Earth Between March 1972 and January 2050 the closest approach of Pioneer 10 to Earth happens on Sat Mar 4 1972 at a distance of 0.00497342 Astronomical Units, or 744,014 kilometers: Pioneer 11 is at X = 16.50431914242421, Y = -79.26893011830222, Z = 20.63394328882455. The value of the distance of Pioneer 10 from Earth is also available as a real time updated value in the Live Position and Data Tracker. Pioneer 10 departs solar system After more than a decade in space, Pioneer 10, the world’s first outer-planetary probe, leaves the solar system. It …