Apr 25 1983
From The Space Library
Scientists at ARC said that Pioneer 10 would be nearly 2.8 billion miles beyond the Sun at 2 p.m. PDT, when it passed the orbit of Pluto, traveling 30,000 mph on its way outside the solar system. The first manmade object to reach such a distance, Pioneer 10 might goon for millions of years and carry Earth greetings to another galaxy. Launched March 2, 1972, the craft had functioned "almost with flaw," said project manager Richard Fimmel.
Because of its elliptical orbit, Pluto-usually the outermost planet-at this time was nearer than Neptune to the Sun and would travel inside Neptune's orbit for the next 17 years. Pioneer 10 would cross Neptune's orbit June 13, effectively leaving the solar system behind. Radio signals moving at the speed of light needed more than four hours to cross the distance between Earth and spacecraft; even after a decade in space, Pioneer 10 was transmitting data of great value to scientists. Since the date of its launch with a predicted lifetime of 21 months, long enough for a Jupiter encounter, Pioneer 10 signals over vastly increasing distances had remained detectable because of improvements in antenna sensitivity. NASA said that it hoped to track the craft for another eight years, to a distance of 5 billion miles, 2.2 billion miles beyond its present location. (NASA Release 83-57; ARC Releases 83-13, 83-14; W Post, Apr 25/83, A-23)
In an exercise called Balloon Intercomparison Campaign, NASA launched four giant balloons from the National Scientific :Balloon Facility (NSBF) at Palestine, Tex., to a 40-kilometer (25-mile) altitude in the largest study ever of ozone depletion in the stratosphere and global air pollution from natural events like El Chichon's eruption in April 1982. Each 800-foot-high, 450-footwide balloon could carry two tons of scientific devices. Investigators were from Canada, Europe, Japan, and the United States. (JPL Release 1019; NASA Release 83-62; LA Her-Exam, April 24/83, 2)
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